MANILA – Sen. Leila de Lima proposed a five-day special emergency leave with pay for workers affected by natural disasters.
An employee who has rendered at least six months of service should be entitled to a five-day “calamity leave with pay,” de Lima’s Senate Bill 1910 stated.
Workers qualified for the calamity leave include those who are stranded in calamity-stricken areas and those who have incurred disease or illness or need to take care of family members or attend to the repair and cleanup of their damaged properties, stated the bill.
De Lima acknowledged that the Philippines, located in the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” is often visited by typhoons that inflict casualties and damage to infrastructure and agriculture.
The government must “strike a balance” between the duties of every Filipino as an employee and his primal instinct for survival, said the chair of the Senate social justice committee.
“The profound environmental effect of natural disasters and/or calamities to the nation is inevitable, and for that reason this proposed measure seeks to, at the very least, soften the blow of the unforeseen and the inescapable,” said de Lima./PN
