BY ADRIAN P. NEMES III
The General Alliance of Workers Association is supporting the plight of frontliners nationwide in calling for the release of their delayed payment for Special Risk Allowance, Meal Accommodation and Transportation Allowance, hazard pay, and other benefits.
Several groups of health workers in the country will stage a protest action today in their attempt to bring their concern to the attention of the national government.
GAWA secretary general Wennie Sancho said that “amid our struggle against the pandemic, the heavy impact of the burden and sacrifices falls mainly on the shoulders of the front line health workers, particularly those who are working in the hospitals.”
Sancho said politicians called them the modern-day heroes in the war against Covid but they are being denied by the government of those benefits that are due to them under the law.
He said workers should be treated with dignity and respect and should receive what is due them as mandated under the 1987 Philippine Constitution.
In its statement, GAWA claimed that the health workers are the “shock absorbers” in the war against Covid, they are on suicide missions, and many of them died after getting infected.*
