MANILA – The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on Thursday vowed to find new funding sources for the disbursement of benefits and allowances of health workers involved in the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) response.
This, after Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman recognized the difficulty of approving the Department of Health’s (DOH) future requests for additional funds for health care workers (HCWs) and non-HCWs’ emergency allowances, considering that the government currently has a “small budget.”
“We will try to allocate funding,” Pangandaman said in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel’s Headstart, when asked if the government has enough funds to grant the DOH’s possible requests to release additional budget for medical front-liners’ benefits.
“As of now po, parang medyo negative na po tayo sa ating mga balanse (we somehow have a negative balance) but we will try. We will try to get from our unprogrammed appropriations. I think I will have to check with the DOF (Department of Finance) and our Treasury if there are additional revenues po from the national government,” she added.
On Wednesday, the DBM approved the issuance of around PHP11.5 billion for the distribution of One Covid-19 Allowance (OCA) or Health Emergency Allowance (HEA) claims to more than 1.6 million eligible recipients from public and private health facilities.
The DBM on Monday also granted the DOH’s request to release PHP1.04 billion, which will be earmarked for the distribution of the special risk allowance (SRA) of 55,211 public and private health workers.
The DOH still needs about PHP64 billion in back pay for health workers, covering June to December 2021.
According to Pangandaman, the DBM has yet to receive the DOH’s request for the release of the PHP64 billion budget.
“What we released are the only requests that we have gotten from the Department of Health. We don’t have the request yet from the Department of Health ‘yung PHP64 billion po na sinasabi nila (with regard to the PHP64 billion it is saying),” she said.
However, she assured that on top of the PHP19 billion allocated for health workers’ allowances for 2023, about PHP38.9 billion in unprogrammed appropriations could be tapped to augment funds for their emergency allowances.
“For 2023, what we have is under unprogrammed appropriations. We also appropriated under PHP38.9 billion po for the purpose. It’s under unprogrammed funds,” Pangandaman said.
Republic Act (RA) 11712, also known as the Public Health Emergency Benefits and Allowances for Health Care Workers Act, replaces the SRA with the One Covid-19 Allowance, currently known as the Health Emergency Allowance.
According to RA 11712, health workers at high risk for Covid-19 exposure will receive PHP9,000 per month, while those in moderate- and low-risk locations will get PHP6,000 and PHP3,000, respectively.
4 Replies to “DBM pledges to identify new funding sources for health workers’ benefits”