The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) shelved Thursday the Sept. 23 deadline for the acceptance of contact tracer applicants and instead adopted the “continuous hiring system until it has hired at least 50,000 contact tracers.’’
In a statement, the DILG noted that all of its provincial and city field offices will continue to accept applications until the slots allocated to them have been filled up.
The DILG also is planning to have the first batch of DILG-hired contact tracers deployed to the LGU Contact Tracing Teams in the first week of October.
Some 10,000 individuals have already applied in Metro Manila but many of them have incomplete documents.
Under the guidelines drafted by the DILG, the contact tracers will earn a minimum of P18,784 per month in a contract of service status.
Among their responsibilities are to conduct interviews, profiling, and perform an initial public health risk assessment of COVID-19 cases and their identified close contacts; refer the close contacts to isolation facilities; conduct enhanced contact tracing in collaboration with other agencies and private sectors; conduct daily monitoring of close and general contacts for at least 14 days, and perform such other tasks in relation to the COVID response.
DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said the concerned applicants are given more time to complete their documents on a first come, first serve basis.
“As soon as they are deemed qualified by the selection board, they will be hired, trained, and deployed to the various LGUs,” Malaya said.
He said that contractual personnel whose employment were not renewed, Overseas Filipino Workers whose employment were disrupted, local employees whose service have been recently terminated, and Barangay Health Workers may be given priority in the hiring process if qualified.
To qualify, the applicant must have a Bachelor’s degree or college level in an allied medical course or criminology course.
Aspirants must also be skilled in data gathering and have assisted in research and documentation; able to interview COVID-19 cases and close contacts in order to gather data; possess the ability to advocate public health education messages; and have investigative capability.
“While our first preference is college graduates or college level of allied medical courses or criminology, we are also open to graduates or college level of any course. So, we urge them to apply and help the country defeat COVID-19,” he added.
Malaya said the applicants are required to submit an application letter, Personal Data Sheet, National Bureau of Investigation clearance, diploma or transcript of record, and drug test result to the nearest DILG provincial or city field office.