Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 21) — The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council does not have the funding to grant hazard pay to local rescuers who have been responding to the pandemic and the recent calamities that hit the country, the agency’s head admitted.
During the Laging Handa briefing on Monday, NDRRMC executive director Usec. Ricardo Jalad responded to the appeal of 24 officers of the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office in Northern Samar to provide them and other workers on the ground with compensatory benefits for responding to various hazards.
“Ang budgetary requirement na iyan, sa ngayon, ay hindi po covered ng National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund,” Jalad said.
“Siguro ngayon, ang magagawa ng NDRRMC ay magsagawa ng polisiya para magbigay ng hazard pay sa mga rescuers.”
[Translation: That budgetary requirement, for now, is not covered by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund. For now, what the NDRRMC can do is to create a policy that will grant hazard pay to our rescuers.]
The letter was issued by the municipal DRRM officers last Friday to President Rodrigo Duterte, NDRRMC chairperson and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, and Jalad, who also serves as the administrator of the Office of Civil Defense.
The letter said it was “very disheartening” that the rescuers have not been receiving any compensatory benefits, unlike health workers who have been granted hazard pay and special risk allowance by the national government.
“It is very disheartening and demoralizing that despite our role as ‘cannon fodder’ to all types of hazards, not even Republic Act 10121, nor any other law or national issuance, provides for the grant of hazard pay or other similar compensatory benefits to us,” it stated.
The officers noted that they are “not competing” with health workers in terms of their line of work, but are rather “respectfully requesting” benefits for their exposure to the risks and hazards of COVID-19 “at the expense of the safety of [themselves] and [their] respective families.”
They also claimed that the proposal to put up the Department of Disaster Resilience would have amended RA 10121 or enacted other laws that would mandate the granting of hazard pay to DRRM officers, community disaster volunteers, and other non-health DRRM personnel nationwide.
The current administration has expressed the need to amend RA 10121, or the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010, through bills that would extend the hazard pay grant to all essential workers that deliver services during emergencies.
The amendment of the law may also pave way for the creation of the Department of Disaster Resilience to address gaps in calamity response by the national government.
The proposal had already been approved in the House, but several bills related to it failed to hurdle the Senate committee level before Congress adjourned session for a holiday break this year.
