MANILA, Philippines (UPDATE 2 3:43 p.m., May 4)— The University of Santo Tomas (UST) on Monday stopped the management of UST Hospital (USTH) from laying off workers just at the hospital union was gearing up to ask the government to step in to halt the order over the weekend.
In a statement, Fr. Napoleon Sipalay O.P., who serves as prior provincial of the Dominican Province of the Philippines that oversees UST, has "held in abeyance" the USTH order of termination issued to about 40 of its employees "because the proposal is subject for review by the UST Board of Trustees." Sipalay also chairs the Board of Trustees.
The order is a welcome development for USTH employees already planning to ask the government to "mediate" and stop USTH from laying off its workers. The decision was made to curb the hospital's widening financial losses due to partial operations as coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) facility and delays in claims remittance by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).
“We are finding ways to file for mediation with DOLE (Department of Labor and Employment) during the lockdown. We will exhaust all means,” Donald John Siazon, union president, told Philstar.com in a phone interview early in the day.
So far, Siazon said the union has received reports of “five to six” people getting termination letters from the management. Workers laid off do not include healthcare practitioners and do mostly “clerical” work like manning billing areas.
That said, he expects to receive more reports from laid-off workers in the coming days as around 80% of the 1,100-strong hospital workforce are currently in forced leave. Some reports put the number of workers let go to be around 40.
“So far, we are on skeleton force with only 180-200 staff going to work. The rest are in forced leave. We have 37 days of leave in a year, including sick leaves, which some of us are already using,” Siazon said in Filipino.
“After we exhaust all our leaves, we will be under ‘no-work, no-pay’ arrangement,” he added.
He appealed to USTH management to reconsider its decision to cut workforce, saying “the management promised us early on the outbreak that there will be no job cuts.” “And yet, here we are losing our jobs,” he said.
A copy of the termination letter obtained by Philstar.com quoted Ferdinand Magkasi, USTH human resources, as saying that “serious financial losses” prompted the hospital to “downsize” its personnel.
Hospital staff who received the letter will see their termination take effect 30 days after. “You will be paid separation benefits based on your length of service at a rate provided in our existing CBA (collective bargaining agreement) which is much higher than what the laws provide,” the letter said.
In a statement issued over the weekend, USTH also cited "more than P180 million" in delayed payments from PhilHealth, representing unpaid claims from last year, as reason for the layoffs.
PhilHealth spokesperson Shirley Domingo, however, said in a text message that a “big” part of the P180 million in claims were actually “returned” to USTH “because of various deficiencies on their part.” She did not say how much of the claims were affected by the deficiencies.
Still, Siazon said delays on PhilHealth payments should not be used by USTH to justify firing workers “since that had always been the case even before the COVID-19 outbreak.”
USTH also supposedly applied for cash aid for its workers under DOLE’s COVID-19 adjustment program (CAMP), but so far there has been no feedback. CAMP has been discontinued due to lack of funds that had prevented the government from assisting more than 1 million worker applicants.
“We really hope they (USTH) reconsider because at this time, our families are also depending on us,” Siazon said. — Prinz Magtulis