De Lima proposes 5-day calamity leave

Senator Leila de Lima. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Opposition Sen. Leila de Lima is proposing a five-day special emergency leave for all public and private workers directly affected by natural calamity or disaster.

The proposal was contained in her Senate Bill No. 1910 that seeks to provide the special emergency leave with pay for all workers.

“Ours is a tropical country and our industries thrive in water. But the force of the earth that catapults us to our growth as a nation is the same force that endangers our people,” De Lima, chair of Senate committee on social justice, welfare and rural development, said in a statement on Tuesday

In filing the bill, the senator stressed the need for the state to strike a balance between the duties of every Filipino as an employee and his primal instinct to survive during emergencies.

“The fight to survive is the daily concern of every Filipino, but it is more important when Mother Nature herself makes her presence known,” she said.

“The profound environmental effect of natural disasters and/or calamities to the nation is inevitable, and it for that reason this proposed measure seeks to at the very least soften the blow of the unforeseen and the inescapable,” she added.

Under the bill, De Lima said, an employee who has rendered at least six months of service should be entitled to a five-day calamity leave with pay in times of natural calamities or disasters.

Qualified to a “calamity leave” are employees who are stranded in calamity-stricken areas, those who have incurred disease or illness, or need to take care of family members, or to attend to repair and clean up their damaged properties during calamity or disaster, she pointed out.

De Lima said the grant of a five-day calamity leave, however, should be subject to careful verification, including the declaration of calamity, medical certificate, announcement of work suspension, road closure, availability of public transportation, among others. /cbb