DAVAO CITY – A total of P826.2 million will be set aside for next year for the health emergency allowance (HEA) of the remaining unpaid healthcare and non-healthcare workers who served during the pandemic in the Davao region, a Health official said.

Dr. Annabelle P. Yumang, Department of Health (DOH)-Davao director, said the agency requested additional funding under national budget next year to cover the emergency allowances of 174,094 healthcare and non-healthcare workers.

Yumang said that a total of P3,422,504,413 has been paid to 621,526 healthcare and non-healthcare workers.

She said that the lack of funding from the government delayed the release of emergency allowances.

Dr. Abdullah B. Dumama Jr., DOH undersecretary for Mindanao, said that the Department of Budget and Management vowed that a total of budget of P27.5 billion will be set aside under the national budget next year to settle the unpaid allowances of unpaid healthcare and non-healthcare workers in the country.

“Unang dahilan nung delay wala ho tayong pera pa pero may nagbigay na po ng assurance ang DBM na tutuganan nila ang pangangailangan which is about around P27.5 billion (The primary reason of the delay is that there is no budget for that but DBM gave assurance that it will address this and will set aside around P27.5 billion),” he said.

He said that the agency also hopes for the release of the unpaid allowances for health workers.

Yumang said that once the region receives funding from the government, payments would be immediately released to the workers through their local government units.

“Ang dumarating sa amin numbers health workers na babayaran sa kung ano ‘yung classification – low, moderate, or high-risk siya – nasa local government unit ‘yun (What we receive are the numbers of health workers that we have to pay, but as to their classification – low, moderate, or high-risk – it is with the local government units),” she said.

According to DBM, amounts that workers will get will be based on the risk exposure categorization – P3,000 for those deployed in low risk areas, P6,000 in medium risk areas, and P9,000 in high risk areas.