‘Just for show’

It has been more than two agonizing years since the devastating COVID-19 pandemic struck the Philippines, and yet the heroic health care workers who carried the country over the worst of the unprecedented crisis are being unfairly burdened with the same old issues of delayed benefits that the government should have long addressed by now.

The outraged Private Hospital Workers Alliance of the Philippines (PHWAP), which represents 12 of the country’s largest private hospitals and some 64,000 health care workers, revealed this week that a number of its members were taken aback when their claims for benefits due last year had been denied.

The Department of Health (DOH) immediately pointed to mistakes in necessary paperwork as reasons for the delay, but for PHWAP spokesperson Jao Clumia, this was just another example of how the overworked and exposed medical frontliners are not exactly being treated as COVID-19 heroes that politicians and government officials extol them to earn brownie points with the medical community and the grateful public.

“I’m not sure if they really want to disburse [the benefits] because they are making it difficult for claimants to get their share,” said Clumia, who is also president of the St. Luke’s Medical Center Employees Association, referring to benefits provided under Republic Act No. 11494, or the Bayanihan 2 law, enacted in September 2020.

Indeed, claiming those benefits enshrined in Bayanihan 2 has been nothing short of an ordeal for the health care workers, who took their anger to the streets in September last year, demanding that the DOH immediately release their promised benefits including the special risk allowance and meals, accommodation, and transportation benefits.

“Napakasalimuot ng ating pinagdaanan para lamang maihatid sa ating mga health care workers ang mga benepisyong nakapaloob sa nasabing batas. Kinailangan pa nating magpunta ng lansangan upang maibigay sa atin kung ano ang nararapat at naaayon sa Bayanihan Act 2,” the PHWAP pointed out in its May 1 message.

The PHWAP thought all along that given that bitter experience that included strident calls for the resignation of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, the DOH would have learned its lesson and streamlined its processes for the quick release of the mandated benefits.

The DOH had even boasted of the quicker release of the “streamlined” and supposedly more equitable benefits through the One COVID-19 Allowance, which supersedes earlier benefits such as the special risk allowance.

But even then, disbursement has been delayed, claimed PHWAP. This despite the P7.92 billion released by the Department of Budget and Management for the personnel involved in the COVID-19 response including 526,727 public and private health care workers.

“Buong akala namin ay natuto na ang DOH sa mga naging suliranin sa pamamahagi ng SRA, hindi pa pala,” said the peeved PHWAP, which vowed to continue to press the government for the release of all guaranteed benefits.

This was just the latest in the health care workers’ seemingly never-ending litany of woes.

Even back in 2020, the health care workers had already been clamoring for their benefits. At that time, they were seeking Duque’s head for the delayed implementation of the provision in the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act granting P100,000 compensation for each of those who got sick fighting COVID-19 and P1 million to the families of those who died in the line of duty.

Given the government’s dismal track record in disbursing benefits throughout the pandemic, it is no wonder that the health care workers are skeptical about the measure signed on April 27 by President Duterte granting mandatory continuing benefits to health care workers during public health emergencies, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

RA 11712 or the Public Health Emergency Benefits and Allowances for Health Care Workers Act, covers all health care and non-health care workers, regardless of employment status, during the COVID-19 pandemic or other public health emergencies on a national scale that may be declared in the future.

Just like the Bayanihan laws, it looks good on paper, but Clumia dismissed the latest legislation supposedly favoring health care workers as “just for show” since the general elections are just a few days away.

“By the time that this law is implemented, elections are already over,” Clumia said, which means that the oft-repeated promises of paying tribute to the medical frontliners will remain just that, mere lip service to those to whom Filipinos owe so much.

With the threat of another surge in COVID-19 cases looming large on the horizon due to the low take-up of booster shots and the emergence of new and more infectious strains, health care workers are again being called to man the frontlines.

It will now be up to the next administration to make sure that it does what the Duterte administration has failed time and again to do by giving them their benefits, complete and on time. It is the least that it can and should do in return for their gallant efforts to prevent another health crisis from erupting.