President Duterte to donate month’s salary to efforts vs COVID

President Duterte will donate his one-month salary to support efforts to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a fast-spreading pandemic that has infected more than one million people worldwide, more than 3,000 of them in the Philippines.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo noted that many Cabinet members have pledged to donate 75 percent of their monthly salaries from April to December to boost the government’s fight against the disease.

“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 government efforts to halt the spread of the coronavirus,” Panelo said in a statement issued yesterday.

Duterte earns close to P400,000 per month, based on the latest government salary hike passed by Congress.

Panelo said other officials with the rank of secretary are giving portions of their salaries to boost the campaign against COVID-19.

Assistant secretaries of the Offices of the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel and Presidential Spokesperson have also committed to donate at least 10 percent of their income directly to the Office of Civil Defense this month, he added.

source: philstar