GSIS chief bats for extra paid leaves for gov’t workers infected with new virus

MANILA, Philippines — Government Service and Insurance System (GSIS) President Rolando Macasaet on Tuesday proposed additional 30-day leave credits for government employees who are afflicted with COVID-19.

Macasaet made the suggestion in response to the consolidated bill proposed by Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Salceda and Marikina 2nd District Rep. Stella Quimbo titled the Philippine Economic Recovery Act or PERA.

Under the bill, GSIS and the Social Security System (SSS) shall provide employee compensation to government agencies and business entities, respectively, “in the form of paid sick leaves provided to employees who contracted COVID-19.”

For the part of GSIS, it shall “directly compensate any government employee who contracted COVID 19 for all salary deductions upon exhaustion of the paid the sick leaves of the government employee”.

If approved, GSIS will get an appropriation of P500 million to implement the measure.

However, Macasaet said that instead of setting aside such as a budget for GSIS the government can just grant additional leave credits to government employees and give the P500 million to SSS for the benefit of workers in the private sector.

“What you can do is all those employees who get sick, you just give them an additional 30 day leave credits instead of allocating more funds for them,” Macasaet said, adding that, “For instance, a person, assuming a government employee, goes on quarantine for 15 days and gets sick for 15 days, he continues on receiving his salary for the next 30 days. This would be in addition to his regular paid sick leave credits.”

As of April 20, there are 6,459 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country, with the death toll reaching 428.

KGA