ANG PROBINSYANO Rep. Alfred C. Delos Santos filed a resolution on Monday seeking an inquiry on the release of the special risk allowance (SRA) given to healthcare workers following a viral post of a nurse who only received P3,863.63 worth of SRA for seven months of service.
House Resolution 2102 calls for hearings to address the delayed SRA releases and discrepancies in actual amount distributed to medical frontliners.
“The lament of our health workers on the low and delayed release of their benefits might end up with mass resignations of healthcare workers leading to hospital understaffing,” according to the resolution.
The resolution came after the July 28 Facebook post of Gershom Sage Reyes Rivero, a nurse, went viral on social media. It showed his SRA from Dec. 2020 to June 2021 amounting to P3,863.63.
Under Administrative Order (AO) No. 36 signed by President Rodrigo R. Duterte, public and private healthcare workers are granted SRA not exceeding P5,000 per month as mandated under the Republic Act 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act from Sept. 15, 2020 to Dec. 19, 2020.
This was extended until June 30, 2021 under AO 42 due to the signing of RA 11494 or the Bayanihan to Recover As One Act. The Department of Budget and Management released P9.02 billion to the Department of Health for the SRA disbursement.
“I honestly do not know what went wrong. While many of my colleagues did receive their rightful allowances, there are also those that received way lesser than what I have right now, yung iba nga wala pang na-receive (some have not received any),” Mr. Rivero said in his post.
In a radio interview with Ms. Delos Santos, the nurse narrated that when he asked his human resources team for a computation of his SRA, he was told that the information is “confidential,” prompting the solon to file the resolution.
The group Filipino Nurses United said in a text message that they welcomed the filing of the resolution, citing a result from their online survey wherein 88% of respondents did not get their SRA from Dec. 20, 2020 to June 30, 2021. — Russell Louis C. Ku