‘Bayanihan 2’ to include cash aid for virus-stricken health workers — Sotto

MANILA, Philippines — Cash assistance for all healthcare workers who will contract the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the line of duty will be incorporated in the proposed Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, or the Bayanihan 2, Senate President Vicente Sotto III said Monday.

Last week, the Senate approved on third and final reading the said measure, which provides for the country’s COVID-19 response and recovery plan as well as a P140-billion standby fund.

“It can be tackled in the bicam (bicameral conference committee). So the issues of risk allowance, life insurance, free accommodations, free transportation, free and frequent Covid testing, and then P10,000 or P15,000 for every health worker that gets sick, additional pa sa mga nilagay natin, yes, I assure you, we will incorporate it in Bayanihan 2,” Sotto said in an online interview with reporters.

Senators are set to meet with their counterparts at the House of Representatives in a bicameral conference committee meeting to reconcile their respective versions of the measure before it can be transmitted to President Rodrigo Duterte for his signature.

In a speech aired Sunday night, Duterte approved the proposal of Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., the chief implementer of the National Task Force against COVID-19, to grant a P10,000 cash assistance each for all coronavirus-hit healthcare workers.

“I agree with you. Even 15 [thousand pesos],” Duterte told Galvez.

Under the Bayanihan to Heal As Once Act, which already expired in June, only health workers who become severely ill in the line of duty would get compensation of P100,000 while the family of those who died of COVID-19 in the line of duty would get P1 million.

EDV