MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Vicente Sotto III will be sending a “strongly worded letter” to the national government, urging it to give health workers, who have died or became severely ill due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the aid that they should receive.
Under the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, public and private health workers who have contracted severe COVID-19 infection in the line of duty are entitled to P100,000, while the families of those who have died from it could get P1 million.
Senators earlier learned that the families of the 32 health workers who died from COVID-19, as well as those who became severely ill from it, have yet to get compensation.
READ: Over 30 health workers felled or sickened by COVID-19 got no aid from ‘Bayanihan’ Act
Sotto said he is currently drafting a letter addressed to the Department of Health (DOH) and the Inter-Agency Task Force against Infectious Diseases (IATF) to give the affected health workers the compensation due them.
“Today, as we speak, I am already drafting a letter, to the DOH and the IATF, a strongly worded letter to call them to give the health workers what is due them na sinabi ng batas,” he said in an interview over ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo.
“Pakonswelo lang kahit papaano, alam natin na hindi balewala sa iba ‘yun,” Sotto added.
(It is a consolation for them.)
According to the DOH, 32 health workers have so far died after contracting the coronavirus, while one of the 1,199 active COVID-19 cases is in severe condition.
READ: DOH: 63 new COVID-19 cases among health workers; total now 2,669