MANILA, Philippines — Employers can help the Duterte administration lessen the impact or spread of the novel coronavirus by allowing some of their employees to work from home, a key official of the House of Representatives proposed yesterday.
“This is probably the time for our companies to give the Telecommuting Act (Republic Act 11165) a chance by pilot-testing or trying out this alternative job arrangement of allowing their employees, if possible, to work in their homes,” Deputy Speaker LRay Villafuerte said.
“We now have this opportunity for employers to support RA 11165 and at the same time help the national government fight the global outbreak of nCoV by letting their workers work from their homes until this global emergency situation subsides,” he added.
This is in light of the fact that 2019-nCoV has killed about 700 people and infected nearly 31,000 others in China and 27 other countries and regions.
The Camarines Sur congressman said the adoption of the flexible work-at-home arrangement would also help “ease and decongest the traffic situation in Greater Manila and reduce the stress of both citizens and the government.”
For her part, Quezon Rep. Precious Hipolito-Castelo called for the construction of the country’s first quarantine facility to help the country deal with situations such as the novel coronavirus crisis.
“Building our first quarantine facility now would save us a lot of time and effort to respond to similar crisis in the future. If we have a national facility, the government won’t be wasting precious time searching for the right area to contain the spread of the disease.”
Castelo, vice chairman of the House committee on Metro Manila development, cited the obvious struggle among authorities on where they should quarantine persons suspected of carrying the virus since government had no place specifically intended for that purpose.
Confusion and panic marred government measures to control the global coronavirus outbreak as it tried to locate a venue as quarantine area for dozens of overseas Filipino workers being repatriated from the epicenter of the virus.
A military base in Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija was initially identified for the quarantine area but doubts on the facility’s capability to hold virus carrier suspects prompted authorities to choose New Clark City in Tarlac instead.
But Castelo said the facility in New Clark City was designed for sporting events and not for containing a virus outbreak.
Meanwhile, Rep. Michael Defensor (Anakalusugan party-list) said the national government will be spending P350 million this year to put up thousands of new “sanitary toilet facilities” to help suppress the resurgent poliovirus that spreads via the fecal-oral route.
The fresh funding is lodged in the budget of the Department of Health in the 2020 General Appropriations Act, but the money will be released directly to the Department of Public Works and Highways.
“The DPWH will construct the toilets based on a list of locations identified and specifications prescribed by the DOH,” Defensor, also House health committee vice chairperson, said. “Assuming the money is spent as it should be, based on the fixed cost of P20,000 per toilet, the P350 million should be enough to build some 17,500 new public toilets where most needed.”
To ensure absolute transparency and accountability in the implementation of the project, Defensor urged both the DPWH and the DOH to catalogue on their websites the proposed sites of the new toilets and to update the list upon completion of every unit.
“Depending on how the two departments will properly build and maintain the facilities, Congress may or may not authorize additional funding in the future,” the senior administration lawmaker said.
The return of polio in the country has underscored the importance of achieving zero open defecation (ZOD), given that the fatal and disabling disease spreads when feces particles from an infected person are somehow ingested by another person, Defensor said.
“Immunization and ZOD are our strongest preventive measures against polio. We are also counting on barangay governments to build additional community toilets on their own to help achieve ZOD,” he added.
Many Filipinos in informal urban settlements as well as in the countryside still defecate in open ditches, canals, bushes, fields or exposed spaces due to the lack of toilets.
In Metro Manila alone, an estimated 3.5 million residents, or 25 percent of the population, still do not have ready access to a household toilet.