By Leslie Aan Aquino More than 2 million workers have already been displaced by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the Department of Labor and Employment said. The Labor department said reports from their regional offices showed that affected workers from nearly 80,000 establishments ballooned further to 2,073,362 nationwide as of April 24. "Almost 1.4 million workers were displaced due to temporary closures while more than 687,000 had reduced incomes under alternative work arrangements like less workdays, rotation, forced leave, and telecommuting," said DOLE in a statement. According to DOLE, the National Capital Region recorded the highest displacement figure with 687,634 workers, followed by Central Luzon at 281,278 and Davao Region with 207,789. Calabarzon reported 158,646 workers; Region 10 with 106,162; followed by Region 2 at 88,531; Central Visayas with 86,767; MIMAROPA at 74,533; Region 6 with 65,892, and the Bicol region with 65,757. CAR recorded 63,957 workers, Region 8 with 49,362, and CARAGA at 39,711. The areas with the least affected workers are Region 9 with 37,683; Region 1 at 32,017, and Region 12 with 27,643. DOLE said so far it already disbursed P1.7 billion of its regular funds to finance the one-time assistance of P5,000 under the COVID-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP) to 345,865 formal sector workers. It added that about 90 percent of establishments which reported work displacements are seeking the CAMP assistance for their workers. As to the informal sector workers, DOLE said 259,449 have already benefitted from their Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers Barangay Ko, Bahay Ko (TUPAD #BKBK) program amounting to P1.14 billion also from DOLE’s 2020 budget. On April 15, DOLE stopped accepting requests for assistance under CAMP after having been swamped with volumes of applications quickly depleting its measly regular assistance fund.