OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT
We claim that our medical frontliners are heroes. But why do we allow them to fight this pandemic without the necessary protective gears and decent incentives? In England, for instance, Queen Elizabeth thanked them for their “exceptional care and comfort to their patients” and even awarded some of them with the British Empire Medal. In New York along the East River, our Filipino frontliners have merited a photo exhibit documenting their heroic tales and sacrifices during this crisis that is like no other.
One broadsheet reported that 25,422 health care workers have been infected with the coronavirus as of Sept. 26 with 105 deaths and 366 active cases. About a year ago when vaccines were not available yet, over 5,000 cases of infection were reported with almost 40 casualties.
Our heroes were dying even in the early days of COVID-19.
We gave them a two-week “time-out” grudgingly. They sought this in August 2020 to allow our health authorities time to rethink and recalibrate the country’s health strategies and protocols because they apparently were not working. But their commitment was intact and unwavering.
The request for a break was not capricious. It was critical because our medical heroes were not just tired. They were exhausted, many of them were infected, some had died. Our health facilities were overwhelmed beyond the usual 70 percent threshold. Their injury was sickness and death, but they were insulted with government neglect to pay their benefits under the law. The President ordered the quick release of their health benefits but not without warning them against demeaning the government and staging a “revolution.” They were considered indispensable but not irreplaceable.
What is sad is that our medical heroes had to explain themselves, something we don’t expect heroes to be doing. In their letter dated Aug. 3, 2020 to the President, our heroes explained that their earlier request for test kits and other necessities was ignored by the DOH. This could have helped avoid transmission and upsurge. Periodic testing would have given them more confidence in their job. Quarantine facilities would have given them respite.
Our medical workers ended up yielding their lives so that many others would live.
Now we also realize that based on the Philippine Senate hearings, whatever health gears have been given to our frontline heroes, they were not exactly protected. Putting the pieces of the puzzle together, an undercapitalized Pharmally was awarded by the government with billions worth of supply contracts, and possible fraud and overpricing have been committed.
The greatest iniquity of Pharmally and the government against our medical frontliners is supplying them with inferior products — damaged and expired — that must have also compromised their health and safety. During last Friday’s testimony of Pharmally executive Krizie Grace Mago, she confessed that she ordered the company’s warehouse workers to tamper with the production dates of the face shields. Pharmally also repacked the face shields which were “dirty and yellowish due to being soaked in rainwater.”
It is most baffling why both the President and the House committee on good government and public accountability defended Pharmally. It is clear that with little protection, infection and death among our frontliners would be inordinately high. Without vaccination, their only defense was their protective gears particularly face masks and face shields which they used in good faith.
Yet the President questioned why face shields should expire. Good, his own Health Secretary Francisco Duque explained that “unlike ordinary plastic face shields, medical grade face shields have protective foams on the upper rim that deteriorate over time and therefore have expiry dates.”
On the other hand, Party-List Rep. Mike Aglipay “saw nothing wrong with the government’s procurement of two million face shields from Pharmally despite revelations of tampering of expiration date by its Senate counterpart.”
His reason: “No one, as far as we know” among the health workers got sick or died. Swindling the government seems acceptable as long as no one dies or gets sick. But swindling is punishable under the law. And some 25,422 medical workers got sick and 105 died.
Many in civil society believe that this swindling and because of the amount involved, plunder, must have been enabled by those in authority.
Thus, it is not good for the President or his spokesman, both lawyers, to be defending Michael Yang and Pharmally. The opposing party is our heroes, the Filipino medical workers. If Pharmally is proven guilty, they go down with the company.
Aside from giving our heroes expired and soiled protective gears, we have failed to provide them with sufficient incentives. Our Olympian medalists received medals of recognition from Tokyo as well as brand new dwellings, cars and cash prizes, a reduction in our heroes’ allowances is being proposed. In contrast, our medical frontliners’ current entitlement to special risk allowance, hazard-duty pay as well as meal, accommodation and transport allowances during this pandemic, might be diminished by unifying it into a single allowance ranging from a low of P3,000 for low-risk workers to a maximum of P9,000 for high-risk workers.
We have all the reasons to believe that our frontliners stand to lose not only their monetary entitlement but also their morale and dignity. They are deployed to the frontlines with the flimsiest protection, their remuneration delayed and for next year, reduced compensation.
Killing our heroes softly with little protection against the virus, not giving what is due them, is like sending our army to war with neitherweapon norarmor, not even a helmet against stray bullets.
That is not the way to treat heroes.