Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. promised to donate 75 percent of his monthly income to “no work no pay” personnels of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
Locsin announced it Monday, two days after Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said the majority of the Cabinet members would donate their salaries to the government in its fight against COVID-19.
“I’m raising to 75% my salary cut to go directly and only to @DFAPHL no work/no pay workers,” said Locsin.
“I need to know it is going ONLY to the right people. I don’t want to learn it’s gone to idiots. That will give me a stroke from rage, and I won’t be able to wield a sledgehammer,” the foreign affairs secretary added.
Locsin said in an earlier tweet, the “no work no pay” employees of DFA are the “backbone (and) flesh of our basic services.”
He initially pledged 30 percent of his salary to be given to these workers.
“Like Singapore paycut, I am raising my 30% cut in my salary. Again for DFA’s army of no work/no pay people—the backbone & flesh of our basic services,” he said.
“Can’t regularize them; historically (Department of Budget and Management) has refused to add ‘plantilla items’ to DFA budget,” he said.
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President Duterte donates a month salary for COVID-19 response
President Rodrigo Duterte said Sunday he will be giving his one month salary along with his cabinet members.
“Others have volunteered a salary deduction for the whole duration of the state of public health emergency in solidarity with our countrymen and to help in the government efforts to halt the spread of the coronavirus,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement. “The President is likewise donating his one month salary for the cause.”
The assistant secretaries of the Office of the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel and the Office of the Presidential Spokesperson also volunteered to give at least 10 percent of their April salary. They also pledged parts of their salaries in the succeeding months to support groups at the front line of the crisis, Panelo said.
Earlier, around 200 lawmakers from the House of Representatives pledged to donate their full May salaries.