Although the COVID-19 pandemic has yet to be contained, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has slashed his department’s budget for the allowances and benefits of health workers, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said Thursday.
Speaking at the House of Representatives’ budget deliberations, Duque said the DBM allocated only P19.68 billion for its COVID-19 initiatives or health system resilience projects in 2022 although the DOH’s original proposal was P73.99 billion.
Marikina City Rep. Stella Quimbo said the DBM-approved amount “seems small for the government’s COVID-19 response.”
“We originally proposed P73.99 billion, P50.41 billion of which will be for the meals, accommodation and transportation and life insurance of frontliners,” Duque said.
Duque agreed with Quimbo that the agency’s budget reduction explains why no funds were allotted for the allowances and benefits of health care workers in the proposed DOH budget.
Duque earlier said the funds for the benefits of medical frontliners are covered by the proposed Bayanihan 3 bill, which is still pending at the Senate, as there were no funds for the special risk allowance (SRA) of health workers in the 2022 budget.
DOH director Larry Cruz, meanwhile, said that of the P311 million released by the Department of Budget and Management last week, P308 billion was already disbursed to various health facilities.
In a separate statement, Health Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega said 99 percent of the budget has been disbursed.
“The P311 million is for the first batch of eligible healthcare workers who did not receive their SRA. We have already requested an additional budget for SRA that will cover another batch of eligible healthcare workers. We are looking forward to a favorable action by the Department of Budget and Management,” Vega said.
Under the guidelines, public and private health workers directly catering to COVID-19 patients are entitled to an SRA not exceeding P5,000 a month from December 20, 2020 to June 30, 2021.
The SRA will be on a prorated basis, depending on the number of days that the healthcare worker was on duty in a month.
But Quimbo said only 20,000 workers would get their allowances, as opposed to 148,000 who must be paid.
She also said the Bayanihan 2 allocated P13.5 billion for allowances, which means the P311 million released by the DBM was not enough.
Quimbo said health care workers should have received an average of P34,000 in special risk allowances each. That means there was a funding shortfall of P5 billion.
She also said future SRA payments were in jeopardy because there is no assurance that Bayanihan 3 will become a law.
Also on Wednesday, Senator Nancy Binay assailed the Department of Health (DOH) for removing the cancer fund and voted to restore it by filing an amendment in the budget for next year.
Binay said it was a “step back” after Congress “had gone through a lot of hoops to fully empower the national cancer control program.”
“The DOH should have taken our cue when we allocated P620 million last year for cancer. That’s the law and a long-term priority. Instead of moving forward, this is a step back that we should correct. When survival matters, you don’t make lifelines invisible,” Binay said.
The P620-million cancer fund for 2021 was only included during the bicameral conference for the national budget. It consists of the P500 million Cancer Control Program fund and the P120 million Cancer Assistance fund.
Earlier, the Cancer Coalition of the Philippines earlier sounded alarm over the removal of the cancer fund line item in next year’s budget.
Quimbo on Thursday suggested the unobligated allotment of P51.18 billion as of June be used to fund the SRA of health care workers.
“Why is there still a huge amount of unused funds? We all know that we need to use every amount for the COVID-19 pandemic response,” she said.
She said the P160.9 billion came from the Bayanihan laws and the 2021 national budget.
“We are looking for funds for the SRAs. We don’t know where we will get that. Can we not use this P51.18 billion?” she asked.
In response, Duque said he has not seen the reports. But explained: “The [remaining] P51.2 billion as stated will continue to be utilized for the remainder of the year… this is part of the 2021 budget…”