Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 13) — Interior Secretary Eduardo Año on Thursday appealed to Congress to provide funds under the “Bayanihan to Recover as One” bill for the hiring of thousands of contact tracers for the COVID-19 fight.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said Año wrote a letter to Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri asking for Congress to allocate P5 billion in the fund to be created under “Bayanihan 2” to hire and train 50,000 contact tracers starting September.
The current roster of 85,000 contact tracers is not enough to meet the recommendation of the World Health Organization to have one contact tracer for every 800 people. The DILG said it is not even enough to meet the requirement of tracing czar Benjamin Magalong of a 1:37 patient to close contacts ratio in order to cut the transmission of the disease.
Interior Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya proposed the inclusion of a provision in the “Bayanihan 2” for contact tracing fund to be used for recruitment, training, compensation, and operational expenses.
Of the 50,000 contact tracers to be hired, 20,000 will be deployed in Luzon, 15,000 in the Visayas, and another 15,000 in Mindanao, according to Malaya.
The version of “Bayanihan 2” passed by the House of Representatives this week allots a ₱162-billion standby fund for interventions to address the COVID-19 crisis. In July, the Senate passed its own version of the bill, allocating P140 billion for recovery efforts.
A bicameral conference committee will meet to reconcile conflicting provisions in the bills.
