Criminal charges have been filed against a Chinese woman who owns and operates an illegal health facility in Parañaque City, where several boxes of medicines reportedly for coronavirus and sexually transmitted diseases worth P30 million were discovered.
Charged with violation of the Republic Act 3720 (Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 2009) and RA 11469 (Bayanihan to Heal as One Act) before the City Prosecutors Office was Yumei Liang, also known as Liza Wu, a resident of Alabang, Muntinlupa City.
The 44-year-old suspect was also charged for violating the city revenue code and sanitation code, and for operating without a permit from the Office of the Mayor.
Members of the city’s Business Permit and Licensing Office and City Health Office raided Yumei’s clinic located at 3985 Garcia St. cor. Airport Road in Bgy. Baclaran last Sunday.
The authorities seized several boxes of medicines allegedly being used to treat COVID-19 patients, and cure other illnesses such as STDs and HIV-AIDS.
ECQ raps vs. village execs breach 1k mark
The Department of the Interior and Local Government has already received over 1,000 complaints against barangay officials regarding violations of the Enhanced Community Quarantine rules, an official said on Tuesday.
“In the whole country, we already got more than 1,000 complaints, from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. We will send these to our DILG regional, provincial, city and municipal offices all over the Philippines,” DILG Undersecretary for Barangay Affairs Martin Diño said in Filipino in a radio interview.
The complaints will be subject to validation before erring barangay officials are issued show cause orders. Diño said they have started releasing show cause orders for erring barangay officials on March 17.
Reported violations include gambling and drinking liquor in public places, “quarantine pass for sale” scheme, and favoritism in the distribution of relief goods, among others.
200k small biz qualify for wage subsidy
Meanwhile, in his weekly report to Congress, President Rodrigo Duterte said nearly 200,000 small business employers have pre-qualified for the government’s wage subsidy program for workers affected by the implementation of the ECQ.
“As of 22 April 2020, the Bureau of Internal Revenue [BIR] has notified 199,377 small business employers that they are pre-qualified for the Small Business Wage Subsidy [SBWS] program,” President Duterte said in his report.
The President noted that to date, around 6,403 employers have completed the application process on behalf of 130,188 employees.
The SBWS program will provide around 3.4 million workers in the formal sector with salary subsidies amounting to a combined P51 billion for two months.
The wage subsidies range from P5,000 to P8,000 per month per employee for two months, depending on the minimum wage levels in the regions where the workers are employed.
‘Provide transpo for frontline workers’
In other developments, the militant labor organization Kilusang Mayo Uno called on Nestle Corp, Philippine National Bank, supermarkets, and other companies to provide frontline blue-collar and service workers the transportation services they need going to and from work, and to stop romanticizing the completely unnecessary hours-long walks the workers take every day.
“Along with healthcare workers, blue-collar and service workers are frontliners too. They provide essential services amid the pandemic.
Without them, we won’t have food at public markets and supermarkets, and no services to avail,” said KMU Secretary-General Jerome Adonis.
“Government should take action and intervene to help all frontliners. With public transportation suspended, making workers walk tens of kilometers is abusive, unnecessary, obscene, unhealthy and unsafe,” the labor leader added.
According to KMU, this abuse is rampant in companies that are without unions or that prevent workers from forming unions.