The Department of Health (DOH) announced on Saturday, Sept. 21, that the total Health Emergency Allowance (HEA) obligation of P103.5 billion is “now 90 percent paid.”
This follows President Marcos’s decision to fully fund the remaining P27.3 billion this year. The DOH, as the implementing agency, stated that it has settled around 14.5 million claims from health workers.
Processing of HEA
In April this year, the DOH reported that P23.4 billion worth of HEA obligations for 4.3 million claims “could not be paid due to budget constraints.”
After processing and granting appeals, the DOH noted that this number rose to P27.3 billion.
In July, the DOH explained that Marcos instructed Department of Budget and Management (DBM) 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 noted that the DBM then immediately released a Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) to enable the DOH to fulfill the obligation.
As of Sept. 20, the DOH said that 64 percent of the additional P27.3 billion “has already been disbursed.”
The surplus fund balance, or excess payments returned by PhilHealth to the national government, provided the necessary cash, the DOH said.
“Ang sobrang bayad na di naman nagamit at siyang isinauli ng PhilHealth ay naging pang pondo para sa HEA ng ating mga health workers (The excess payments that were not used and were returned by PhilHealth became funding for the Health HEA of our health workers),” DOH Secretary Teodoro J. Herbosa said.
“Lumipat po mula sa bangko, papunta sa tao. Sa ngalan ng ating mga Covid-19 frontliners, maraming salamat po (This moved from the bank to the people. On behalf of our Covid-19 frontliners, thank you very much),” Herbosa added.
Role of health facilities
Meanwhile, the DOH stated that health facilities have been “key players” in the final payment of HEA to health workers.
The DOH reported that it has listed 2,853 such facilities, and checks have been issued to 2,070, or 73 percent of them.
In compliance with Commission on Audit (COA) guidelines, the DOH continually reminds 517 of these facilities to finalize the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) and 649 to completely liquidate previous payments.
“Over the weekend, both health facilities and groups of health workers publicly acknowledged receipt of their well-deserved HEA,” the DOH said.
In an online human resources (HR) advisory, the DOH stated that the Cardinal Santos Medical Center (CSMC) expressed its gratitude to Herbosa for facilitating the payment of their HEA covering 20 months.
Health workers from Gentri Medical Center in General Trias, Cavite, also sent a video recording to the DOH in which they thanked President Marcos and Herbosa for facilitating the HEA payments.