No budget cut for contact tracers

MANILA – Malacañang on Tuesday assured that the government would continue to allot funds for the hiring of contact tracers nationwide.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque gave the assurance following the recent announcement of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) that it is facing “budget limitations”, prompting the agency to rehire only 15,000 of the nearly 50,000 contact tracers hired last year.

“I really doubt na babawasan natin ‘yung budget for contact tracers at this time (I really doubt that contact tracers would face budget cut at this time),” Roque said in a virtual presser.

Roque said there are only delays in the distribution of contact tracers’ paychecks since they are working under a contractual scheme.

He, nevertheless, assured contact tracers that their contract with the government would be renewed after it expired in December last year.

“Mare-renew din po iyan at mare-receive din nila yung mga sweldo nila (It will be renewed and they will get their paychecks),” Roque said. “I think it is forthcoming, ‘Yung renewal ng kanilang mga kontrata (The renewal of their contracts is forthcoming).”

The DILG in 2019 hired a total of 46,338 contact tracers to boost the government’s efforts against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

Contact tracers have been tapped to trace the close contacts of individuals infected with Covid-19.

As of Tuesday, the Philippines has logged around 516,166 Covid-19 cases.

On Jan. 16, the DILG said it would have wanted to rehire all the 50,000 contact tracers it hired last year, but budget constraints hindered it from hiring them again this year.

The DILG added that it could only rehire around 15,000 contact tracers nationwide since the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) only approved PHP1.9 billion for the rehiring of contact tracers for 2021.

On Monday, Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado said the DILG can realign its budget to rehire the almost 35,000 contact tracers who cannot be covered by the funds approved by the DBM.