Same old story

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III insulted health care workers when, confronted by the low number of applicants to the emergency hiring program of the Department of Health, he assumed that they were bereft of the good citizenship so necessary in times of crisis.

Where has this man been all this time? Health care workers have long had their noses to the national grindstone; in this COVID-19 pandemic, they have become beasts of burden first in and last out of the medical battlefields—with next to nothing to show in terms of pay commensurate to the risk they face. There should be no question of their bona fides as Filipinos serving their country.

Only 25 expressed interest in the hiring program that the DOH launched in April, Duque said in an online forum last week. He forthwith appealed to “the sense of nationalism, the sense of patriotism, of every health care worker.” He reminded them that there was “a war” going on, and “who will take care, look after, or treat our fellow Filipino but us?” He said it was urgent to “help each other,” to “be united,” to “be selfless.” For one wild moment—the irony being so sharp — the weary observer could have sworn Duque was talking to the plunderers of PhilHealth.

The administration likes to cite supposed benefits granted health care workers ostensibly to balance the risk and the extraordinary workload that they have had to take during the pandemic. But their near-universal cry of inadequate wages and personal protective equipment continues to ring in their workplaces despite Administrative Order No. 26 that President Duterte signed in March granting hazard pay of P500 a day to government personnel who report for work during the quarantine.

The case of nurse Maria Theresa Cruz of Cainta Municipal Hospital provides an idea of what the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) describes as a “deceptive” and “divisive” AO 26. From reports, Cruz, 47, died of COVID-19 late in July. She had been anticipating her hazard pay, which she intended to use to purchase equipment needed by one of her kids in online classes. But she died before the money was released.

Cruz’s eldest child went to her workplace early in August to see to her papers and claim her benefits. From her account, Joie Cruz said she found that her mother’s daily hazard pay amounted to only P150, or P60.93 after deductions. Cruz, along with her fellow workers, had been expecting some P30,000 for 60 days of risky hospital work, but the sum that was actually presented to her daughter was P7,265.

“This issue is not about monetary value,” Joie Cruz wrote. “This issue is about how some government agencies lie and how we take for granted and exploit our frontliners in the face of this pandemic.”

According to the AHW, a health worker has to choose between the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers hazard pay and the COVID-19 hazard pay, “whichever is higher.” But under AO 26, COVID-19 hazard pay is computed based on the number of days, and not hours, a health worker is on duty. Thus, per the AHW, the hazard pay a nurse receives for working in a COVID-19 ward 12 hours a day, four days a week is smaller compared to that received by office personnel working eight hours a day, five days a week.

The hazard pay is taken, not from an additional fund, but from an agency’s share in the 2020 national budget. AO 26 states that should an agency have insufficient funds, “a lower but uniform rate may be granted for all qualified personnel.”

The Department of the Interior and Local Government has announced it would look into Cruz’s case. Said its spokesperson, Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya: “Cainta is a first-class municipality, so I see no reason why it could not afford to pay the P500/day hazard pay granted to all health workers during the global pandemic.”

Indeed. But it’s the same old story in this country where those who perform work essential to the people’s physical and mental well-being languish beyond the authorities’ gaze. When Metro Manila was first locked down in March, leaving thousands of health care workers desperate for a ride for days, it took Vice President Leni Robredo to organize free transportation to get them to their workplaces, and, later, to arrange lodging for them. The administration that has long shunted Robredo to the sidelines merely followed her lead.

It also unjustly maintains a ban on overseas deployment for health professionals with no valid work contract as of March 8, invoking supposed incentives as well as their “nationalism” to keep them here.

Just recently, addressing an exhausted medical community, the President growled that if health care workers wanted higher pay, they should join the police force: Magpulis kayo.

Incredible but true.