THE total Health Emergency Allowance (HEA) obligation of PHP103.5 billion is now 90 percent paid, following the decision of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to fully fund the remaining PHP27.3 billion this year.
In a news release on Saturday, the Department of Health (DOH) said that as implementing agency, it has settled around 14.5 million claims from health workers who served during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In April of this year, the DOH recorded around PHP23.4 billion worth of HEA obligations for 4.3 million claims that could not be paid due to budget constraints. After DOH processed and granted appeals, this number rose to PHP27.3 billion.
Last July, President Marcos instructed Budget and Management Secretary Amenah Pangandaman to no longer wait for the General Appropriations Act of 2025 to pay this amount, and to process it this year.
The DOH said surplus fund balance or excess payments which Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) returned to the national government provided the cash needed.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) thus immediately released a Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) to enable the DOH to fulfill the obligation.
As of Sept. 20 this year, 64 percent of the additional PHP27.3 billion has already been disbursed.
Health facilities have been key players to the final payment of HEA to health workers themselves, the DOH said.
“DOH has listed 2,853 such facilities. Checks have been issued to 2,070 (73 percent) of them. In compliance with Commission on Audit (COA) guidelines, the DOH is continually reminding 517 of them to finalize the Memorandum of Agreement or MOA, and 649 of them to completely liquidate previous payments,” it said.
Both health facilities and groups of health workers have publicly acknowledged receipt of their well-deserved HEA.
In an online human resources (HR) advisory, the Cardinal Santos Medical Center (CSMC) expressed its gratitude to Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa for facilitating the payment of their HEA covering a 20-month period.
Health workers from the Gentri Medical Center in General Trias, Cavite also sent a video recording to the DOH where they thanked President Marcos and Herbosa for facilitating the HEA payments.
“Ang sobrang bayad na di naman nagamit at siyang isinauli ng PhilHealth ay naging pang pondo para sa HEA ng ating mga health workers. Lumipat po mula sa bangko, papunta sa tao. Sa ngalan ng ating mga Covid-19 frontliners, maraming salamat po,” Herbosa said.
