What is Happening?
As Filipinos celebrate National Heroes’ Day, many in the government praise frontline workers as “Modern Filipino Heroes.” President Rodrigo Duterte, during a press conference on the same day, stated, “These past two years, we have witnessed the indomitable spirit of these nameless health workers, uniformed personnel, government employees, and frontliners in essential industries who, hiding in anonymity, bravely led our battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Despite this, many medical frontliners spent their National Heroes’ Day protesting in front of key government buildings due to the government’s ineffective response to the pandemic and their treatment of medical frontliners. They went to the buildings dressed in their full medical PPE gear to let their voices be heard loud and clear.
Why are they protesting?
This was caused by the decision of the Department of Health (DOH) to halt all release of benefits to frontliners under the Bayanihan 2 Law. Many frontliners claim to not have received even a single centavo for their care of Covid-19 patients. Many groups like the labor unions of St. Luke's Medical Center Global City, Metropolitan General Hospital, The Medical City, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Cardinal Santos Medical Center, and Calamba Medical Center shared the same grievances, specifically regarding the actions committed by the government that led to many of the benefits of frontliners being removed.
Many of this criticism was directed to Secretary of Health Francisco Duque III, mainly because it was under his prerogative that the benefits of medical workers were temporarily ceased. "We strongly demand more actions than words. Thus, we are giving the DOH until August 31, 2021 to implement the long overdue COVID-19 benefits to health workers," said Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) president, Robert Mendoza.
What are the consequences?
In response to this, the Department of Budget Management (DBM) released P311.79 million to be used for the benefits of all frontline workers. Guided by Administrative Order No. 42 and DBM-DOH Joint Circular No. 1 dated June 16, 2021, about 20,208 public and private health workers directly catering to COVID-19 patients shall receive an SRA not exceeding P5,000 per month from December 20, 2020 to June 30, 2021.
With the Philippines already hitting a total amount of 2,000,000 cases, it is evident that the Duterte Administration is losing trust from more Filipinos due to their actions in relation to the pandemic. One can only wait and see if this will affect the possible political careers of current pro-administration politicians.
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