ASEAN HEADLINES: MANILA, Philippines- Frontliners: Pay up or we strike

A health workers group on Thursday said it would give the Department of Health (DOH) until today to give them their overdue benefits for serving amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) moved up its deadline for the DOH to respond and said its members would go on strike if the benefits were not paid by Friday, the group’s president Robert Mendoza said.“We talked with our leaders yesterday and came up with the deadline on Friday… Our previous deadline on Sept. 1 was rescheduled to Friday because we don’t expect any good news for health workers,” Mendoza said in Filipino on ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo.Health workers were not happy with the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing into the DOH’s spending of its pandemic funds on Wednesday, Mendoza said, because they focused only on the special risk allowance (SRA) and did not touch on other benefits.