Legarda wants increase in allowance of barangay day care workers

MANILA, July 31 (PNA) — Senator Loren Legarda recommended on Friday an increase in the allowance of barangay day care workers who at present are receiving a monthly allowance of only P500.

“The compensation they receive is no longer commensurate to the tasks they perform and the responsibilities they hold,” Legarda said.

According to her, barangay day care workers "should be entitled to full subsistence allowances of three meals as determined by the Secretary of Health in consultation with the Management Health Workers Consultative Councils.”

Legarda said, “Aside from taking care of their wards, the barangay day care workers help facilitate the referral of cases of child abuse to the Department of Social Welfare and Development and have been called to assist during calamities.”

She noted that there were 32,787 day care centers in the country’s 41, 943 barangays all over the country per 2000 records, an improvement from the year 1998 when 26.7 percent of the barangays did not have Barangay Day Care Centers.

“Republic Act No. 6977, otherwise known as An Act Establishing a Day Care Center in Every Barangay and Instituting Therein a Total Development and Protection of Children Program created the position of Barangay Day Care Workers,” she said.

“I filed Senate Bill No. 1348 recommending an amendment to Republic Act No. 7305 or the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers, the law governing the rights and privileges of public health workers in the country because the existing law does not include our noble barangay day care workers,” Legarda added.

“Senate Bill No. 1348 will include the barangay day care workers in the enumeration on who are public health workers, therefore addressing the meager allowances that they are presently receiving, giving them the recognition that has long been due them,” she stressed. (PNA)
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