The Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG) commended the efforts of Filipino healthcare workers who have been on the frontlines in combating the deadly COVID-19 pandemic for over a year now.
“Our heroic healthcare workers deserve more than lip service from the government. They are overworked and underpaid, even before the pandemic. Their Special Risk Allowances and other benefits are long overdue,” said CPDG spokesperson Liza Maza.
CPDG hit the government’s brand of governance riddled with repression, corruption, and vulgar neglect which makes the socioeconomic and health crises due to the pandemic even worse.
“Aside from unpaid benefits and meager wages, healthcare workers are also subjected to human rights violations including extrajudicial killings. Among the most gruesome cases is the cold-blooded murder of Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan, Inter-Agency Task Force against Emerging Infectious Diseases head of Guihulngan City, and her husband by an anti-communist militia, and the killing of community health worker and human rights defender Zara Alvarez by unknown assailants,” said Maza.
Sancelan and Alvarez, and many other health workers and rights defenders provide essential services to poor communities amid the deadly pandemic but are being persecuted or even killed.
“This should not be the price to pay for serving the people,” Maza averred.
Maza’s group took as ‘token appreciation’ from the government its praises for health workers amid still unpaid benefits and the slew of pandemic funds mismanagement reports revealed by the Commission on Audit (COA) reports.
“Any statement by the president or government praising our healthcare frontliners is belied by their mismanagement of funds, failing pandemic response, and deaf ear to the people’s demands. Ironically, the president even defends Health Secretary Duque amid corruption accusations and the anger of the people,” Maza asserted.
The reports released by the COA on different anomalies involved almost every government agency. The reports and subsequent calls for probes on the reports was castigated by the President himself is one proof.
“Stop that flagging. You make a report, do not flag. Do not publish it because it would condemn the agency or person that you are flagging,” said Duterte.
Maza added, “[the President’s] criticism against Senators who want to pursue the investigation on the allegations against the Department of Health shows utter disregard of the people’s right to know about government spending and insensitivity towards the clamor of our health workers”.
Maza briefly served in the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte as National Anti-Poverty Commission chair. However, as with other “personalities from the left” that the president appointed at the start of his term, each one were eventually booted out. The Commission on Appointments, made up of representatives from both houses of Congress (including the House of Representatives where Duterte has a supermajority) did not approve the executive appointments.
“The Duterte administration’s governance has long been under fire for its gross disrespect of human rights and dismal social services amid the perpetual socioeconomic crises. The 2022 elections gives us the chance to collectively express the kind of leadership we want and need,” Maza said.
