Barangay officials gripe anew on ambulances, health workers

Cebu City barangay officials mostly identified with Team Rama vented their sentiments on the recall of ambulances and the termination of services of 540 barangay health workers to City Hall lawyers during a mediation hearing held by the Ombudsman-Visayas Thursday.

“Among gi-ingnan nga hopefully, dili gyud ni ingon panaktakon sila (BHWs) tungod lang sa politika or what (We told them that hopefully they won’t terminate the barangay health workers due to politics or what),” Councilor Philip Zafra said.

He said a Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG) issued a memorandum circular stating that barangay health workers should not be sacked except for a valid cause.

Zafra also said they reiterated anew that ambulances be redeployed in the barangays instead of recalled so it can be used for emergencies.

Zafra, who is also president of the Association of Barangay Captains (ABC), also said the distribution of medicines is better done at the barangay health centers instead of house-to-house from the City Health Office as ordered by Mayor Tomas Osmeña.

But Raplh Sevilla, spokesperson for the city government during the mediation hearing, belied Zafra’s claims saying the mediation proceedings had already been terminated and that there were no follow-up meetings agreed on.

Sevilla said the health workers were not “terminated” since their contracts already expired. He said this year’s budget of P6 billion meant the health workers cannot be accommodated since their honoraria will be sourced from the 45 percent of the budget set for personnel services,

“The personnel services (budget) now is much much lower, I would say it is 50% lower than that in 2015 so how can you accommodate everybody? Again, this would all boil down to this – this is the administration, this is the style of the new administration,” Sevilla said.

Sevilla told the barangay officials to wait for a while before they start questioning the effectivity of the recently-implemented program in the distribution of medicines to barangay constituents since it had been only done for 10 days.

“This program is not a new program because this is the program of the DOH (Department of Health). The current administration saw the importance and promise of the program that’s why we are adopting it,” he said.