Barangay health, daycare workers, “tanods” now included in SAP
DAVAO CITY, April 19 (PIA) – The Department of Social Welfare and Development directed all its regional offices implementing the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) to include barangay health workers, barangay tanod, and barangay day care workers as target beneficiaries of the government’s amelioration program.
In the Regional Presser initiated by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) with Davao Region government officials, participated by the Philippine Information Agency XI and the Davao media held Thursday, DILG Spokesperson and Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya announced that he received the confirmation from the DSWD Secretary Rolando Bautista after the DILG appealed for the inclusion of the mentioned sectors.
The DILG opined that barangay health workers, tanods, and day care workers, by analogy to their counterparts in the private sector, fall under the definition of sub-minimum wage earners which refer to any person who earns a wage below the prescribed minimum and is the sole income-earner of their family.
“ They only get honoraria or allowances which ranges from P1,000 or even below dependent on the financial capacity of the barangay. Because of this classification, they really fall in the category belonging to low income families that should be included in the amelioration program,” Malaya said.
The DILG also stressed that the so-called heavy-lifting job for the immediate response to the pandemic has been delegated to barangay health workers and tanods as the frontliners in all communities. It is but just to give them reasonable leeway to be entitled in the programs of the government.
“ They are frontliners, they constitute the quarantine teams, and BHERT or the Barangay Health Emergency Response Team. Kasa-kasama sila sa mga nagcocontact tracing. Dapat mabigyan sila ng kaukulang atensyon at maqualify sa SAP (They are part of the contact tracing team. They must be given attention and should be qualified as SAP beneficiaries),” Malaya added.
As to the implementation of such order, DSWD XI regional director Grace Subong said that the office is yet to receive the order from the DSWD Secretary. Adjustments can easily be made since DSWD personnel and the barangay captains can coordinate and include the mentioned sectors in the latest list of beneficiaries asked by the DSWD from LGUs.
“ Ongoing pa naman ang validation. May mga barangay na hindi pa nakakapagbigay ng final list. We asked the LGUs to list down those so called left out but deserve to be beneficiaries so we can validate. So far, only some LGUs have submitted the list of left out families,” Subong said. (PIA XI/Frances Mae Macapagat)
source https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1039415