‘Why only SRA?’ Health workers to pursue mass protest on Sept. 1

The mass protest of health workers will push through on September 1 after the Department of Health (DOH) still failed to pay other COVID-19 benefits, the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) said Wednesday.

Earlier, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) announced that it  released P311.79 million for the long overdue special risk allowances (SRAs) of both public and private healthcare workers in the country. 

But according to AHW President Robert Mendoza, the DOH has yet to provide them the P38,000 worth of meal and transportation allowance allocated from December 2020 to June 2021.

This is apart from the P3,000 monthly active duty hazard pay for health workers.

"Hindi kasi nila binabayaran ang lahat kaya dismayado ang health workers. Bakit SRA lang? Ang dami ninyong utang," Mendoza said over Maki Pulido's "Saksi" report.

(They are not paying all the benefits and health workers are dismayed. They owe us a lot.)

According to DBM, it would depend on DOH if it still has additional funds for the meal and transportation allowance.

The AHW already warned that they will conduct mass protests if the rest of their benefits are not rendered by Aug. 31, the same deadline that President Rodrigo Duterte set for DOH. —Consuelo Marquez/LDF, GMA News