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| Photo from Manila Bulletin |
With closed roads and empty offices, how
could a home-quarantined worker avail of the P5,000 token assistance announced
by DOLE early this week?
Nobody knows and nobody can, according
to the labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM).
“Not only is the aid very small. It is
also practically unreachable,” stated PM Chair Renato Magtubo, explaining that
given the lockdown measures enforced by security forces on the roads and the
paralysis in the non-frontline government offices, the chance of getting this
relief while on quarantine is almost impossible within that period.
The DOLE guidelines, Magtubo said,
provide for a two-week processing time in approving employers’ request for
assistance based on flexi-work arrangements they will undergo as required by
DOLE.
But the labor leader said, that is only
possible if employers would really apply for the program out of concern for
their workers. What would happen if employers and their staffs are also locked
out? And assuming their applications are approved, how can workers avail of
that aid if they are not under ATM payroll or with most of banks also in
skeletal operations?
There are so many questions to ask, but
for Magtubo, a labor leader and who is now a city councilor of Marikina, the
draconian restrictions imposed by the lockdown policy must be tamed by the ease
in availing social assistance in this time of crisis.
“Napakaliit na nga ng ayuda, long
distance love affair pa ang sistema,” lamented Magtubo.
One option the PM is proposing is for
Sec. Bello together with all other labor officials to join local officials in
distributing this aid package as DOLE’s other program of providing temporary
employment for the informal sector affected by the lockdown is likewise
implemented at the barangay level.
“But the most logical way and which
impact is more universal for those in the formal sector is for DOLE to order
all employers to provide paid quarantine leaves to all their workers. In this
way the state fund intended for them can be utilized to assist informal workers
such as displaced drivers, vendors, community help workers, among others,”
concluded Magtubo.
19 March 2020
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