A WORKER, who was hired by the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Davao Region (DSWD-Davao) to conduct the Listahanan survey for the 3rd Round Nationwide Household Assessment, aired his complaint against the office for the delay of their compensation.
In a message sent to SunStar Davao Facebook page, Vince, not his real name, shared that since they started their work last October 28 for the Listahanan project of the DSWD, they have not signed any contract nor received their allowance.
He said their work demanded them to go to different villages that they are assigned in to gather information.
Vince said they were just being promised several times but until now they have not received their pay. They were promised to receive their allowance on December 2 but there was none. Recently, they were again promised to receive it today, December 6, but it still remains to be seen.
Vince said their work required them to do house-to-house visits and conduct interviews with different households, even in far-flung barangays and puroks to get data from the community.
Listahanan or the database of poor households will be the end-product of the nationwide assessment. Its main objective is to formulate unified criteria for the identification of the poor through scientific means. Vince said they had to cough up from their own pockets for their own transportation fare to be able to go to their destinations. For over a month that they have not received their compensation, they almost run out of money to support their daily expenses in going to houses.
“Gutom na kaayo mi walay sahod, wala ma pamalit bugas nagapangayo na lang mi og kaon sa barangay kay sa barangay man mi naga stay ug naga tulog. Ang uban sa amoa or halos tanan minyo nya naay mga anak. Ang uban single parent sad wla nay ika palit ug bugas baon sa mga bata even pang attend ug Christmas party wla clay ikahatag sa mga anak kay wlay sahod (We are hungry because we haven’t received our salary. We cannot buy food so we just ask help from the village since we are staying there. Most of us have their own families with children, while others are single parents. With the delay of our salaries, they can’t buy food, even more so they can’t give money to their children for their Christmas party),” he said during a Facebook messenger interview.
With this, some of them resorted to borrow money to sustain their daily expenses.
They were also promised to be given travel allowance before they started their work.
“Kami pa nagbayad sa pag-laminate sa among ID which is shoulder na dapat na sa DSWD. Gena hadlok me pag musumbong me like sa imuha taga news kay dili me sweldoan [We even have to pay for the lamination of our IDs when it should be shouldered by DSWD. We were also threatened not to report to the media otherwise we will not receive our payroll],” he said.
In a separate interview with Felicity Elvie Bahinting of DSWD-Davao Listahanan program focal person, she said they have conducted a meeting yesterday afternoon with the management together with the human resource section head and DSWD-Davao assistant regional director. She said that such concern was supposed to be resolved internally but since it has reached the media, they also want to air their side.
The enumerators, according to Bahinting, are output-based, meaning if they do not submit their output report from the field, their payroll will not be processed. They had their cutoff of report submission last November 10 and November 15 since there were some who already completed their work in 10 to 15 days, however, they still have to check the outputs. All of them, however, were able to submit their outputs on time and they are now processing it.
“As of the moment we are having a meeting with the management since ‘yong overall total kasi na sahod for the entire region is P10.4 million so we are planning out today as to when and where is the first province and cities kung saan ika-conduct ang payout since our Special Disbursing Officers (SDOs) are really required to be part of the payout,” Bahinting said.
In Davao Region, DSWD hired a total of 232 area supervisors, 46 area coordinators, and 1,159 enumerators and more than 400 encoders and verifiers.
In Davao City alone, there are 263 enumerators, 53 supervisors, and 10 area coordinators.
“Ang instruction ng management we are trying our best na maka-payout siya this week and then once na nasa amin na ang cash, cash basis kasi siya that’s the time na mag-announce kami,” she further said.
Meanwhile, for the expenses of the field workers on the ground, she said they will reimburse their transportation provided that the workers have submitted all their documents like receipts and liquidation, however, no one has submitted yet so they cannot release the reimbursement as of yesterday.
“So hindi nila pwedeng i-claim ang hindi pa nila nasubmit,” Bahinting said.