The Labor department says it may resume its cash assistance to the workers in the formal sector, with Congress urging an increase in the department’s funds for its emergency subsidy program.
READ: DOLE halts workers’ subsidy; Finance starts its aid program
“We are hopeful that some positive developments are coming along the way for our displaced workers,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said Sunday.
He cited the efforts by lawmakers, led by Senators Joel Villanueva and Christopher “Bong” Go, to pump more funds into the COVID Adjustment Measures Program or CAMP, which provides a P5,000 one-time assistance to the workers affected by the lockdown resulting from COVID-19.
“We are grateful to Senators Villanueva and Go for their unwavering support in helping our workers tide them over during this health crisis,” Bello said.
His department last week announced it had stopped accepting requests for assistance under CAMP, and after being swamped with applications that quickly depleted
Families eligible
The Interior department said Saturday the families of village watchmen and health workers nationwide were now eligible for the social amelioration program.
READ: Salceda proposes P53-b wage subsidy for 6m middle-income wage earners
In a statement, Interior Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said Social Welfare Secretary Rolando Bautista had issued a memo on Friday approving his department’s recommendation to include village front liners in the national government’s financial aid for low-income households during the COVID-19 crisis.
Part of the Interior department’s letter read: “It is the appeal of this department that the nature of appointment of barangay health workers and barangay tanods should not outrightly disqualify them from being included in the target beneficiaries under the SAP, particularly the emergency subsidy program.”
Post the list
The Interior department has ordered the barangays to post the list of beneficiaries of the social amelioration program in prominent public places to ensure transparency in identifying them amid the enhanced community quarantine.
READ: P40-billion subsidy distributed to poor families
“We want the process of identifying the target beneficiaries under the SAP to be transparent,” Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said in a statement on Saturday.
“Hence, we have directed all our head barangays to post the master list of beneficiaries in strategic areas in their barangays so that the residents will also be informed if they will receive the financial assistance from the government.”
Año said it was also important for the barangay chairmen to fully disclose the list of beneficiaries so that residents could tell them if they thought they should be on the list.
Publication urged
Senate President Vicente Sotto III has called for the publication of the names of people who have received the government’s cash aid under the Special Amelioration Program.
READ: Government set to subsidize salaries of 3.4 million middle-class employees of small firms
Sotto, who co-authored the Senate version of the law on the program, cited the mounting complaints from low-income workers and members of vulnerable sectors that they had not yet received the cash assistance under the Bayanihan Act.
“So the question is, who have been given [assistance] by the government? Why are there many complaints that some people are yet to receive help under the law?” Sotto said.
He urged the Department of Social Welfare and Development to upload in its website the names of the people who had already received the P5,000 to P8,000 cash assistance and the areas that had already been covered since the distribution of the aid started.
LTFRB criticized
A transport group on Sunday slammed the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board for cutting the number of driver-beneficiaries under the special amelioration package or the emergency subsidy program.
George San Mateo, president emeritus of the Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Tsuper at Operators Nationwide or PISTON, said LTRFB Chairman Martin Delgra III had said on April 8 that 435,319 public-utility-vehicle drivers would benefit from the program.
But San Mateo said Delgra later clarified that the agency would only submit 280,000 names based on the agreement of the Land Bank of the Philippines, Department of Social Welfare and Development and the LTFRB.
“Apart from the new list of 280,000 names, there would still be a reduction of beneficiaries once the list is scrutinized by the DSWD to identify and scrap beneficiaries of the cash conditional transfer,” San Mateo told the Manila Standard.
“There will be a big disenfranchisement of beneficiaries. Many of the PUV drivers have also been hit hard by the enhanced community lockdown.”
Scrap the donor’s tax
Scrapping the donor’s tax and making donations deductible from the income tax payment will save frontliners and more lives during calamities, according to Senator Imee Marcos.
“Taxes are not the only way to generate much-needed government resources,” Marcos said.
“A new world is emerging from this Covid-19 crisis and new ways of looking at things are the key to survival.”
Marcos, who heads the Senate committee on economic affairs, says donations from “good Samaritans,” fill the gaps in the supply chain of food, medical supplies and other crucial resources needed by the government to aid calamity-stricken communities.
Among the seven bills that Marcos filed amid the lockdown, Senate Bill 1429 seeks to remove the red tape when applying with the Finance department for certificates of tax exemptions on donations by institutionalizing full tax benefits for donors.
Tip of the iceberg
The Kilusang Mayo Uno sees the 1.3-million construction workers affected by the lockdown and desperately need help as just the tip of the iceberg.
The National Economic and Development Authority says there are about four million construction workers and 60 percent of them are in Luzon.
“Where is DOLE [Department of Labor and Employment], where is the government when workers need financial aid?” KMU secretary-general Jerome Adonis said.
“DOLE was able to provide assistance to less than 300,000 workers, when millions of workers are displaced in Luzon alone. The government even made the financial aid to workers even more inaccessible after it stopped receiving applications for CAMP.”
Few received aid
Only 4.37- million beneficiaries out of the 18-million target received cash aid during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kabataan Party-list says
Based on President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent report to the Joint Oversight Committee on the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, only 4.37 million beneficiaries out of the 18 million received the cash aid during the COVID-19 pandemic, the party-list said.
“This means that, after nearly one month under lockdown, only around one-fourth of the target has been reached and that the latest figure only slightly increased from last week’s total number of beneficiaries despite the clamor to expedite government efforts,” said Kabataan Rep. Sarah Elago.
On the other hand, the think tank Ibon Foundation also noted that the number was way below the number of targeted beneficiaries.
