A month has passed since the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or “Bayanihan 2” lapsed, but health care workers have yet to receive some benefits from the Department of Health (DOH) under said law due to delays in the budget department’s distribution of funds.

Bayanihan 2, which expired last June 30, is a P214.1-billion economic stimulus measure dedicated to aid sectors hit by the pandemic.

In the Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) latest report, around P48 billion has been allocated to the DOH, or roughly 22 percent of the Bayanihan 2 funds. However, the DOH had failed to give health care workers their benefits fully before the unspent funds were reverted to the National Treasury upon the law’s expiry. 

Under Bayanihan 2, health workers are set to receive their meal, accommodation, and transportation (MAT) allowances from the budget downloaded to the hospitals in December last year.   

The hospitals, however, were not able to disburse all the funds within just a few days due allegedly to their large amounts. They were then forced to return the unused budget to the DOH upon its orders, as Bayanihan 2 was supposedly set to end in December 2020, the same month the budget was distributed to public and private hospitals.

But with the subsequent extension of the law’s validity to June 30, 2021, the DOH agreed to release the funds once again to the hospitals, but only returned 30 percent of the originally allotted budget for the health care workers’ MAT allowances. 

The rest of the supposed funds for the allowances, the DOH said, had already been repurposed for or spent on other COVID-related activities such as the vaccination program and hiring of additional emergency human resources for health. 

This left many health care workers lamenting the untapped funds that should have been theirs in the first place, Cristy Donguines, president of Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center Employees Union-Alliance of Health Workers, told the Collegian.

“Hindi dapat nila ‘yan ginagamit dahil alam naman natin [na] lahat ng programa ng gobyerno, funded ‘yan, may sari-sariling funds ‘yan. Bakit nila sasabihin nang gano’n sa amin, ano ang hidden agenda nila behind that issue?” Donguines said.

Selective Guidelines

The health workers’ frustrations, however, have not only been focused on the funds taken away from them, but also on the guidelines by the DOH and the DBM that they deem selective and unfair.

Under the Joint Circular No. 2 of the DOH and the DBM, a special risk allowance (SRA) has been promised to the health care workers pursuant to Bayanihan 2. But the guidelines state that only those who are catering directly to COVID patients shall receive the SRA amounting to P5,000 a month.

While this allowance could indeed be beneficial to health care workers in COVID-19 wards, others still firmly believe that even those workers who do not attend directly to COVID-19 patients should also be beneficiaries as everyone in the hospital is prone to high risks.

In the UP Philippine General Hospital (PGH), for instance, as a COVID referral center, most of its facilities are dedicated to the treatment of COVID patients. As such, the PGH primarily attends to patients who acquired the virus, thus heightening the risk for all of the hospital’s health care workers.

“Yung paghahati o yung distinction na COVID at non-COVID sa PGH na isang COVID referral center ay hindi namin tinatanggap at tingin namin lahat ng health workers dito dapat may SRA,” according to Karen Mae Faurillo, a social worker at the PGH and president of All UP Workers Union-Manila.

She shared how one of her colleagues, a nurse catering to non-COVID patients, had had to undergo quarantine after a patient she had been attending to tested negative for COVID-19. Her colleague eventually tested positive.

In the PGH alone, of the 1,252 health care workers who tested positive according to its July 21 data, only 286 of them were from the COVID wards while 966 were from other areas in the hospital. 

“Dapat kinukunsidera po nila na lahat ng nagtatrabaho sa hospital ay risky ang area, mapa-opisina man siya, mapa-dietary man siya, o kung saan man siyang area sa hospital. Dapat hindi po sila nagbigay ng guidelines na very selective,” Donguines said.

Long Overdue

Most of the health care workers ineligible for SRA rely on the other benefits covered by Bayanihan 2, such as the active hazard duty pay (AHDP), a P3,000 monthly grant given to workers, provided they physically report for the whole month, excluding weekends. Those who did not complete reporting for 22 days are entitled to only less than P3,000, depending on the number of days they reported to work.

However, even the AHDP has not been given to some health care workers until now, Donguines said. She recalled that the AHDP covered only the months when an enhanced community quarantine took effect, but even that small amount could not be given to them after the DBM’s delayed release of funds to DOH. 

After a series of protests in front of the DOH since Bayanihan 2 lapsed, where, at one rally, some demonstrators even threw tomatoes at the DOH logo, the department has still not acted on the health care workers’ calls.

Although Health Secretary Francisco Duque III has already asked Congress for an additional P66 billion under the Bayanihan to Arise as One Act or Bayanihan 3, the bill is yet to be reviewed by senators after the House of Representatives approved it last month.

Health care workers, meanwhile, believe that the funds that they have been promised should not have been cut since their service to the public has been consistent during the pandemic.

“Ang panawagan sana namin, pagdating sa mga benepisyo na may kinalaman sa pandemya, dapat po ito ay tuluy-tuloy, at hindi nakatali doon sa mga batas at mga periods na sinasabi nila,” said Faurillo. “Pumasok na naman ang July 1, ibig sabihin ba wala nang COVID?”

Workers like Donguines also assert that, because the law, in part, aimed to aid the health care providers, they should not have had to plead and fight, which is basically what they have been doing recently.

“Bakit kailangan pa naming magpakahirap sa lansangan, mabilad sa ilalim ng araw, kailangan pa naming maulanan, humiga, umupo sa kalsada, para lang ibigay ng Department of Health sa amin yun? Hindi naman dapat e,” Donguines said. ●