Last Aug. 30, Araw ng Kagitingan, President Duterte heroized health workers fighting the killer virus. Hospital nurses, orderlies and lab techs were indifferent. At noon they walked out of their jobs in protest of long unpaid special risk allowances. “If they truly care, then why withhold what is due us?” their leaders lamented.
Mandated by the Magna Carta for Health Workers, the SRAs were allocated by Congress in early 2020. Beneficiaries were to get P34,000 on average for COVID-19 ward duty. When the health workers first decried the non-payments in September and again in December last year, Malacañang vowed swift action. Still, cash releases were delayed and incomplete. Deaths, infection and fatigue were decimating the frontlines. Fed up, they took to the streets.
Two days later at the House of Reps came a shocker. The 2022 national budget submitted by Malacañang does not provide for SRAs. Isn’t the pandemic expected to go on, Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo asked. Health Sec. Francisco Duque stammered that the SRAs were bundled into the Bayanihan 3 bill, pending since May.
That’s wrong, Quimbo pointed out. Bayanihan 3 is unsure to pass, because not deemed a priority by Malacañang. But if included in a budget law, a yearly constitutional requirement, SRA funding for 2022 can be assured. Besides, the SRAs in Bayanihan 3 are mere leftovers from the expired Bayanihan 2 act, insufficient for the 148,000 frontline health workers.
In his Aug. 30 telecast, Duterte harangued senators and congressmen questioning his admin’s pandemic spending. Supposedly they do not care for soldiers’ welfare, unlike him who visits and sleeps in military camps.
Two days later at the House surfaced another shocker. Malacañang has zero provision in 2022 for hospitalization of soldiers and veterans, and for hospital gear. What’s going on, party-list Rep. Jericho Nograles wondered. Our soldiers are not bulletproof and COVID-proof. How will Armed Forces’ main and field hospitals, clinics and dispensaries operate?
Nograles cited the Veterans Memorial Medical Center. VMMC had sought P300 million to replace its decrepit cobalt-60 cancer therapy machine, P90 million for magnetic resonance imaging, P36 million to build an endoscopy center, P35 million to upgrade its pulmonary ICU and P29 million to renovate the radiotherapy unit. Total: P455 million.
The Dept. of Budget and Management scrapped all those, Nograles gleaned from Palace submissions. A footnote suggested that the Dept. of National Defense get the funds from VMMC’s golf course income. Yet that income is only P2 million a year, reduced further by pandemic restrictions.
Defense Sec. Delfin Lorenzana couldn’t explain the budget deletions. Notably for 2021, the DND got P1.786 billion for hospitalization and equipment, including for reservists.
Comparisons are inevitable. Pharmally Inc. of Duterte’s Chinese friend Yang Hong Ming, alias Michael Yang, is privileged. The trading firm was only eight months old; under-capitalized at P625,000; with no office, experience and income in May 2020. Yet the admin handed it more than P10 billion (not P8.7 billion as earlier reported) for pandemic supplies. The face shields, surgical masks and personal protective wear allegedly were overpriced. Malacañang appointee, Procurement Service-DBM head Lloyd Christopher Lao, held no public biddings.
In August 2020 Duterte taunted frontline doctors and health workers to revolt, when all they wanted was time out to reassess the admin’s pandemic response. Duterte took months to fire crooked, inept PhilHealth designees for overdue professional fees of doctors and reimbursements to hospitals.
Duterte named foreigner Yang as presidential special economic adviser, and Lao as PS-DBM chief out of “utang na loob.” He praised Yang’s buddy, former Chinese ambassador Zhao Jianhua, as a colonel of the People’s Liberation Army. In February 2020, a PLA warship trespassing the West Philippine Sea, aimed its weapons on a Philippine Navy patrol. PLA combat aircraft harass Filipino sailors and airmen resupplying Marines in Pagasa Island and Ayungin Shoal. Duterte has been silent.
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San Miguel Corp. has tapped foremost city planner Arch. Felino Palafox Jr. to make its airport and aerocity project in Bulacan a model for green urbanization. Palafox is to master-plan the P740-billion New Manila International Airport as an environmentally sustainable and disaster-resilient architecture. The 2,500-hectare site is in seaside Bulakan town.
SMC president-COO Ramon S. Ang and Palafox agree to avoid the woes that afflict Philippine cities: pollution, floods, overcrowding and traffic. “We will clean the air and clear the river systems,” Ang says. “We will establish mangrove forests all over Bulacan and neighboring provinces to enhance biodiversity and mitigate tidal flooding.”
“I’m aligned with the mission-vision of Mr. Ang,” Palafox says. The five-runway aerodrome and surrounding city is only 15 minutes by tollway from Metro Manila. But unlike the metropolis’ central business districts, it will be livable. Workers will be able to walk to offices, dining and leisure spots. Basic needs and waste management will be topmost.
Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying
Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying
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