Labella assures healthcare workers anew: Cash incentives to be released soon 

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CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella once again assured healthcare workers entitled to receive the city’s cash incentives that they would get them soon.

Labella, in a press interview on Monday, October 19, 2020, told reporters that the city was already processing the release of the monetary benefits.

“The incentives for our healthcare workers are now being processed by our City Accounting Office,” said Labella. 

He also asked qualified recipients to have more patience, saying that the process of shelling out ‘large amount of public funds’ would take time.

“And I am also appealing to our frontliners to wait for a little while for the release of the money since it involved giving out a big amount of money, and this is the first time our local government is giving incentives or honorarium to private healthcare workers,” Labella added.

To recall, the Philippines Nurse’s Association (PNA) Cebu Chapter asked an update from the city government last week on the status of the cash incentives that was promised to them. 

The city has pushed back several times the release of the honoraria for healthcare workers, citing documents required by the Commission on Audit (COA) for these to be considered legal.

Read more: Nurses still waiting for Cebu City’s promised cash aid

Each recipient is expected to receive a total of P30,000 for the months of July, August, and September. 

Labella said those qualified to benefit from the cash incentives are healthcare workers, including nurses, doctors, medical aides, therapists, medical technologists to name some, for as long as they are involved in attending to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. 

/dbs