DOLE distributes P600-M assistance to nearly 200K workers

FILE: Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello III on April 27, 2018. ROBINSON NIÑAL JR./PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

MANILA – Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello on Monday said almost 200,000 formal and informal workers received PHP600 million cash assistance from the government.

In a Laging Handa briefing over PTV-4, Bello said workers affected by the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine to contain coronavirus disease (Covid-19) received one-time PHP5,000 cash assistance each.

“As of yesterday, we have already approved the application of 102,855 formal workers and we already paid PHP514 million. Sa informal workers we already approved 72,703 beneficiaries and we already paid them PHP107 million,” he said.

The workers from formal sector benefited from the Covid 19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP) while those from informal sector were compensated under Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD)-Barangay ko, Bahay Ko (BKBK) program.

Bello said DOLE is still targeting 350,000 workers by the middle of April.

“We are still targeting 115,000 formal workers up to April 14. Sa informal workers we are targeting 235,000,” he said.

He said the anti-Covid-19 measures are expected to affect 1.8 million workers.

“Kaya siguro (That’s why) we will have to ask for additional budgets allotment from the national government,” he said.

Laudable move

Meanwhile, a labor group lauded the move of the government to increase the DOLE’s budget for cash assistance and cash for work schemes for affected workers by the one-month quarantine.

“The additional budget will help minimize restiveness among a huge swath of unemployed employees and their families desperate for cash assistance and those on the brink of starvation and poverty,” said Gerard Seno, executive vice president of the Associated Labor Unions (ALU).

Seno said there is still a wide deficit on the number of beneficiaries who have yet to receive the cash from DOLE three weeks into the lockdown due to constraints in payroll submission and other stringent requirements.

He urged the government to trim down such requirements and allow companies to submit their certified list of employees with verifiable contact numbers so that remittance center immediately verify recipients.