PHILIPPINE President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, November 16, signed Administrative Order No. 35, granting active hazard duty pay and special risk allowance to COVID-19 medical frontliners.
Under the order, national government agencies, government-owned or -controlled corporations and local government units are authorized to grant active hazard duty pay up to P3,000 per month to pandemic frontliners such as medical, allied medical staff, and other personnel in the public sector.
Excluded in the hazard pay grant are consultants and experts engaged for a limited period to perform specific activities or services with expected outputs; laborers engaged through job contracts and those paid on piecework basis; student workers and apprentices; and individuals and group of individuals whose services are engaged through contract of service or job order, including barangay health workers, who are not assigned to hospitals, laboratories or medical and quarantine facilities.
The grant is in addition to any hazard pay, hazardous duty pay, hazard allowance, special risk allowance or other similar benefits under existing laws, issuances, rules, and regulations.
It is also exempted from income tax.
The hazard pay grant will be pro-rated based on the number of days that the front line HRHs physically report for work in a month, reckoned from Sept. 15 until Dec. 19.
The Philippine Department of Budget and Management and Philippine Department of Health were ordered to draft the guidelines necessary for the effective implementation of the order.
The order will take effect immediately after its publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation.
