Over 8,000 workers displaced by COVID-19 receive cash aid from DOLE

MANILA, Philippines — Over 8,000 workers who have been displaced because of the coronavirus pandemic, have received cash assistance from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

This was according to the report submitted by President Rodrigo Duterte to Congress on Tuesday.

The report said 8,641 beneficiaries of the DOLE-COVID-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP) have received P5,000 cash assistance.

According to DOLE Department Order No. 209, CAMP “shall cover workers in private establishments affected by the COVID-19 pandemic from its onset in January 2020 until the lifting of the Stringent Social Distancing Measures in the National Capital Region on 14 April 2020, unless extended by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.”

Government employees, however, are not covered by the program.

Aside from CAMP, the labor department also has the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) Program wherein a beneficiary  “works for a 10-day disinfection/sanitation of his/her house and its vicinity to be paid pursuant to the prevailing regional daily minimum wage.”

The report states that the amount disbursed for CAMP and TUPAD has reached P95.43 million.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Tuesday said provision of subsidy for affected families amid the pandemic is “ongoing” for DOLE and the 4Ps  or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.

“Relax lang, mahina ang kalaban. Hindi instant coffee ito,” Sotto said.  (Relax. We are not making instant coffee.)

Meanwhile, Senator Joel Villanueva, who chairs the Senate committee on labor, urged the government to finalize the list of beneficiaries who will receive the P5,000 to P8,000 emergency subsidy that “will help our workers in the no work, no pay sector, and workers in the informal economy, and their respective families, among other sectors.”

“While our executive has assured us that the list of beneficiaries will be streamlined, we suggest that our government place the final list of beneficiaries, including names and their barangays, in a website which will serve as a transparency mechanism and a convenient form of accounting for the public,” Villanueva said in a statement.

Section 4 (c) of Republic Act No. 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act tackles the provision of an emergency subsidy to around 18 million low-income households in the country affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

The subsidy amounts from P5,000 to P8,000 a month for two months and is computed based on the “prevailing regional minimum wage rates.”

/MUF