CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — As the observance Labor Day on May 1 draws near, the Kilusang Mayo Uno said the latest update given by Pres. Rodrigo Duterte to the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee showed “billions of funds, but tens of millions are still neglected.”
Of the P100 billion allotted to the Department of Social Welfare and Development for 17.9 million families, only 4 million have been served as of April 18. The Department of Labor and Employment’s fund of P4 billion has served only 237,653 formal sector workers, 235,949 informal sector workers, and 3,245 overseas Filipino workers.
The Small Business Wage Subsidy Program of the finance department for 3.4 million employees will only start payment in May. The P1 billion for micro, small and medium enterprises was already in the 2020 budget and made to appear as part of the Covid response, the KMU said.
“In contrast, we have some 11 million wage earners employed. We have 12 million OFWs. More are unemployed. Job displacement and income loss have reached severe proportions five weeks into the lockdown. An extension or modification of the quarantine does not relieve, improve nor ameliorate their families with the current system,” the KMU added.
“The rural poor, especially small farmers and fisherfolk, more than 50 million of them in Luzon alone, are complaining. More widespread landlessness even to agrarian reform beneficiaries is looming ahead,” KMU reported.
The KMU cited the report that the Department of Agriculture’s P3 billion fund has so far served only 52,043 farmers of the more than half million targeted. Close to P4 billion are for loans to farmers, fisherfolk and agricultural enterprises.
As the immediate economic relief of the government falls short, the medical response has also been found wanting by the labor group.
“Even if we extend the lockdown to a full year, the public health system long privatized under neoliberal policies could not cope with the crisis,” noted the KMU.
The labor movement quoting a report: “There are only 693 hospitals and quarantine facilities (mostly private hospitals at 381) with a total of 8,714 beds and 1,697 ventilators. These have actually served only 575 of the target 1,415 patients for Covid-19. About P8.3 billion was released to 226 Health Care Institutions and another P5 billion for testing, decontamination, laboratories, isolation rooms and tents.”
Of the total P246 billion pooled government funds, about P149 billion has been released. LGUs were allowed half a month’s share in their revenues for the response while P100 billion were taken by the treasury from government owned and controlled corporations.
“It is not a question of the availability of funds. All these funds came from the sweat and toil of labor. Even the $500 million loan extended by the World Bank would be paid for by our blood and the blood of our children. What we need is systems change,” the KMU added.
