Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte on Monday expressed hope that newly-appointed Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Teodoro Herbosa will make good on his promise to facilitate the speedy release of the unpaid health emergency allowances of healthcare workers (HCWs) and non-HCWs who had played a crucial role in saving lives during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Villafuerte also said Herbosa should find out soonest what could be done about the P12.57 billion worth of health emergency allowances that medical front liners have yet to receive but which the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) claimed had been released already to the DOH.
“We hope that newly-appointed Secretary Ted (Herbosa), who is a veteran in the healthcare sector, would deliver on his promise to give priority to looking into the still-unpaid Covid-19 allowances—and get to the bottom of what happened to the P12.5 billion in Covid-19 allowances that the DBM claimed to have released to the DOH months back but which have yet to be handed out by the health department to the intended beneficiary-HCWs and non-HCWs, as provided by law,” Villafuerte, sitting president of the National Unity party and majority leader of the House contingent’s Commission on Appointments, said.
“We want to know soon enough from the new Secretary when the DOH is going to release the balance of about P12.57 billion from the P19.96 billion in Covid-19 benefits and allowances of HCWs and non-HCWs for their medical services rendered to our people at the height of the pandemic that the DBM claimed to have released already to the health department,” he added.
Given the new DOH chief’s impressive record in the health sector, including stints as Special Adviser to the National Task Force Against Covid-19 and trauma division chief at the surgery department of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), “I assume Dr. Herbosa, as a medical frontliner himself, will agree with me that it doesn’t make sense that for all their life-saving efforts at the height of the pandemic, our HCWs and non-HCWs in hospitals and other health institutions have yet to receive the emergency allowances due them up this time when the WHO (World Health Organization) had already declared this global public health emergency as over,” said Villafuerte.
Aside from HCWs, the extra benefits also cover frontliners who are non-healthcare workers (non-HCWs), including those rendering medical, allied medical, administrative, technical, and support services in hospitals, health facilities, laboratories, medical or temporary treatment and monitoring facilities, and vaccination sites.
On his first day in office at the health department last June 7, Herbosa was quoted in the media as telling reporters he would immediately look into this issue of unpaid benefits of HCWs and non-HCWs. “Kung may benefits sila na hindi pa naibibigay, na supposed to have been given, I’ll try to make sure that our Budget and Management and the Department of Health will be able to issue all of these things na hindi pa naibibigay. I’ll look into that … I’ll make sure lahat ng nagtrabaho at nagbigay ng serbisyo, mabigay ‘yung benefits nila … We need to solve this. Priority ko ‘to,” Herbosa said.
Villafuerte was the principal author in the House of Representatives of Republic Act (RA) 11469 or the “Bayanihan to Heal as One Act” (Bayanihan 1) and RA 11494 or the “Bayanihan to Recover as One Act” (Bayanihan 2) that provided for such extra benefits to HCWs and non-HCWs along with financial aid or ayuda to poor Filipino families, dislocated workers and other Covid-hit sectors.
Villafuerte had co-authored as well RA 11712 or the “Public Health Emergency Benefits and Allowances for Healthcare Workers Act,” which assured the release of such extra pay for HCWs and non-HCWs even after the lapse of the two Bayanihan laws.
Taking the cudgels for HCWs and non-HCWs who claimed they have yet to receive their long-due Covid-19 allowances, Villafuerte earlier bewailed the delayed release of such benefits due an estimated 20,000 healthcare workers.
Citing a United Private Hospital Unions of the Philippines (UPHUP) report, Villafuerte said that 20,304 HCWs have not received their law-mandated Covid-19 allowances and other benefits totaling P1.94 billion dating back from October 2021 onwards.
According to the UPHUP, the still-unpaid benefits of 20,304 HCWs totaled P1.84 billion—comprising One Covid-19 allowance (OCA) worth P985.6 million; P737.5 million-worth of health emergency allowance (HEA); special risk allowance (SRA) totaling 16.8 million; and meals, accommodation and transportation (MAT) benefits reaching P6.7 million.