No work, no pay

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the rapid spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

It’s past 3 p.m. before I remember to give our help her salary. I could kick myself.

Poor Fedela must have been wondering if she should remind me about her salary. I know her well enough to say that she may have kept quiet about it, knowing I would have to go out to an ATM to get the cash to pay her.

She confirms it, telling me that I could put it off till my next food run since we are taking care of her needs anyway. I am touched and thank her, but I remind her that while she may not need it for herself right now, she has family members in the province who are not as well placed.

She hesitates, but only for a moment. Now that Cebu Province is under enhanced community quarantine, most of her immediate family members have had to leave their jobs in the city and are now in their home town. No work, no pay.

Two of her nieces, she says, were asked to join a skeletal work force at an export processing zone (EPZ) but the mother felt that the risk of them getting stranded in the city at such an uncertain time was too great. Almost all of the companies in the EPZ have closed shop and let their workers go. Some were given wages; others, food packs; and the rest, nothing.

She also disclosed that several of her relatives work for just one firm manufacturing a popular food pasalubong, albeit in different branches. When the firm decided to close shop for the duration of the lockdown, all of them lost their sources of income. Only some received cash subsidies, the rest got food packs.

Photo taken from Top Gear Phils.

These stories are replicated all over the country. Only the names and the circumstances are different. Latest Labor Force Survey figures put the number of informal sector workers at 15.6 million, or 38% of the total working population of the country.¹ This sector includes ambulant vendors, jeepney drivers, domestic helpers, tricycle drivers, and other daily wage earners.

Some of them have a family member/s who continue/s to provide a basic service at this time, like a bank security guard, supermarket cashier, hospital cleaner, purified drinking water delivery boy, etc. There’s money coming in, but it is not enough to cover for the loss of income from the rest. 

The rest, well...they look to government and civic-minded individuals, groups and companies for help.

When President Rodrigo Duterte placed the entire Philippines under a six-month state of calamity last March 16, he allowed national and local governments to access their quick response funds to bankroll COVID-19 interventions.

This is how local government units (LGUs) were able to buy food packs which, in most cases, were distributed a week after the effectivity of the lockdown.

The Department of Social Welfare and Distribution (DSWD) was supposed to follow through with additional assistance. But in its twitter account, the agency reports that “as of 6 a.m., 30 March 2020, a total of P46,638,918.97 worth of Family Food Packs have been distributed by DSWD Field Offices in response to the requests of LGUs for resource augmentation.”

So many barangays are still waiting for those family food packs. 

On March 25, the President signed the "Bayanihan to Heal as One Act," which gives him, among others, the power to give 18 million low-income families P5,000 to P8,000 in emergency cash aid, depending on the prevailing minimum wage in the region.

I was listening to DSWD Director Irene Dumlao being interviewed over DZMM’s special coverage of the COVID-19  Pandemic a while ago, and she could not even give an estimate as to when the agency could start giving the emergency cash aid.

The President’s emergency powers also allow him to augment the budget for the Department of Labor and Employment's (DOLE) Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) and COVID-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP).

Under CAMP, DOLE has P1.3 billion to provide a one-time P5,000 cash aid for about 250,000 quarantine displaced workers. 

Meanwhile, TUPAD-BKBK (Barangay Ko, Bahay Ko) is a P180-million emergency employment program that pays some 18,000 informal sector workers minimum wage to disinfect homes around their area.

All that money looks good on paper. I'm sure it would look even better in the hands of those that need it. Eventually.

DoH update: As of 4 p.m. of March 30, the Philippines has reported 1,546 confirmed corona virus cases, including 42 recoveries and 78 deaths.

¹Patty Pasion, “FAST FACTS: What you need to know about PH's informal sector workers”, May 09, 2017, https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/169006-fast-facts-philippines-informal-sector-workers