MANILA – Opposition senator Leila de Lima has filed a measure before the Senate which seeks to grant disaster service volunteers a 15-day paid leave from work within a year.
In her Senate Bill No. 1284, De Lima said that certified disaster response volunteers must be compensated for their regular pay rate for regular work hours during their time of absence due to volunteer services.
The senator, however, explained that the leave will be subjected to the approval of the government department or the agency the employee is under.
“These volunteers play an important role in increasing the government’s response capacity especially at the community level,” De Lima said. “A covered employee who is granted leave [s]hall not lose any seniority or any already accumulated vacation time, sick time or earned over time due to such leave,” she added.
De Lima, who chairs the Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development, said that a proactive approach to disaster response is imperative.
“As a country who has suffered increasing levels of calamity, it behooves our government to continue to rise to the occasion. One such measure is to activate our civil servants as reserve emergency responders in times of extraordinary disasters,” De Lima said.
“Legislation must be made not only to allow our government employees to join the disaster response contingent but to encourage them to do so by protecting their tenure and granting paid leaves to those who are truly qualified,” she added.
“These natural disasters, such as typhoons, earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, landslides and fires exposes the country and our people to a wide range of risks, billion-worth destruction and losing the lives of our citizens,” she said./PN
