Customs scanners seek higher hazard pay

The Customs bureau has asked the Department of Finance for a higher hazard pay and medical benefits for X-ray scanning staff exposed to radiation at the worksite.

Lawyer Ma. Lourdes Mangaoang, head of the X-ray Inspection Project, said X-ray inspectors were receiving a P600 hazard pay after the Commission on Audit ruled that they did not belong to the category of health workers who enjoyed 30 percent of their salary for facing occupational risks.

She said this has been the rate for a long time and has remained despite the increase in the cost of living and other factors.

In a proposed executive order, Mangaoang cited the certification of Bureau of Health Devices and Technology director Agnette Peralta, wherein she said Customs X-ray workers and staff doing inspection duty were subject to the hazards from normal and potential exposures of X-ray.

She said they are expected to obtain known but predictable controllable levels of radiation as part of their work.

Mangaoang said they are willing to compromise on a 10 to 20 percent of actual salary, as long as the level would be higher than the present rate because Customs workers are exposed to the same hazards as health workers.

She said they were also pushing for a comprehensive health insurance.

“Under the proposed EO, we want to have an annual checkup or a health insurance for X-ray inspectors who are exposed to radiation on a daily basis in the field. They only have PhilHealth now, but no insurance,” she said.

The EO also seeks the standardization of salaries of the 78 X-ray inspectors nationwide since most of them were from other units of the Customs bureau prior to the establishment of the X-ray project two years ago.

“Some of them are from the Customs police, some came from other units, and there are some who receive salaries as low as utility personnel. We want to standardize their salaries to at least P16,000 because their work is very technical,” Mangaoang said.

The bureau is implementing the X-ray project to plug revenue leakage and prevent the entry of contraband shipments. –Joel F. Zurbano, Manila Standard Today