What a shocker — but then again, maybe not: The Department of Health, according to reports, has failed to pay many of the contact tracers it hired under the COVID-19 Surveillance and Quick Action Unit of the Epidemiology Bureau — and some of them have contracts ending this month. It’s been three to four months of unpaid toil for these workers who are risking their lives at the frontlines, doing arduous work essential to any serious effort to curb the pandemic.
Just last month, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III appealed to the sense of nationalism and patriotism of health care workers after the DOH disclosed that it received only 25 applications for its emergency hiring program, out of a potential pool of about a thousand medical frontliners seeking to work abroad. Before this, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration had issued a resolution temporarily suspending the deployment of 14 categories of health workers, supposedly to ensure that the country had enough health workers to “replace, substitute, or reinforce existing workforce currently employed, deployed or utilized locally.”
“We are in a war,” Duque said. “Let us be united. Let us help each other because in the end who will take care, look after, or treat our fellow Filipinos but us… Let us change our mindset in this pandemic and maybe let’s be selfless.”
Big words, and all of them hollow, now that it’s been revealed that the health department has, once again, failed to “take care [of], look after, or treat” right its most precious resource especially at this time, its health workers. Many of the contact tracers took the contractual job amid a recession that has seen more than 7 million unemployed Filipinos, hoping to eke out a living despite the particular risks involved in the assignment. That they remain without compensation for months now represents cruel, criminal neglect on the part of the government.
“Akala namin isang buwan lang o isa’t kalahati lang pero habang tumatagal… Ilang buwan na wala pa rin sahod,” lamented Marie, one of the contact tracers interviewed by ABS-CBN. They were assured by their supervisors that they would be reimbursed for expenses they advanced, such as for cell phone load to make calls for contact tracing. Some of them had to borrow money to cover these expenses, according to Marie, on top of having to support their families and paying for household needs.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire acknowledged the problem, which she said has been brought to the DOH’s attention, and cited a preposterous reason for the delay: the employees’ alleged failure to submit all the required documents. If true, that reflects unconscionably not on the workers, but on the DOH, whose vital work can apparently be hijacked and thrown into disarray by slow paperwork amid the severest public health crisis confronting the country.
Another contact tracer said that even with complete requirements, they have yet to receive their wages. Those whose contracts are ending this month have been informed that they will receive a “backpay voucher” as guarantee that they will be paid once their documents are processed. Will that voucher buy food or goods for these workers? “Kahit naman may pandemic hindi dapat apat na buwan ang tagal,” said Marie. “Minsan iniisip na nga lang namin [kung] may pondo sila sa pag-hire ng madami.”
The government has the money specifically to hire contact tracers, or so it claimed in May. “[M]ayroon tayong sapat na pondo para diyan,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque had said, adding that these contact tracers would even be provided with training. Indeed, the government has been on a borrowing binge to support the country’s COVID-19 response—the national debt now stands at P9 trillion.
As the likes of Taiwan and South Korea have shown, contact tracers are a critical component in the fight against COVID-19. The information they obtain helps track the virus’ spread and, along with prompt testing and treatment, prevents more infections among the populace.
But, with the government mistreating contact tracers the way it has shabbily treated nurses and other frontline workers, is it any surprise that few are keen to be hired for work where scarce protection equipment, gruelling working conditions, and, worse, delayed salaries and hazard pay are the infuriating norm?
“How long are we gonna suffer from this ever slow acting, need we say & emphasize — ‘inept’ government?” asked the Twitter account United Frontliners PH (@frontliners_ph). “Imagine working in the frontlines at the height of the pandemic, literally risking & sacrificing health & lives and yet not receiving salaries & contracts are already to expire?”
What was Duque’s exhortation again? “Let us help each other.” He can start by paying the contact tracers their salaries now; any further delay is unacceptable.