THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has disclosed that a total of P91.28 billion has been released for the public health emergency benefits and allowances (PHEBA) of health workers across the country since 2021.
In a statement, the DBM said it has released to the Department of Health (DOH) P12.1 billion for 2021; P28 billion for 2022; P31.1 billion for 2023; and P19.96 billion for 2024.
The P91.28 billion was broken down as follows; of P73.26 billion for health emergency allowance (HEA)/One Coronavirus disease 2019, P12.90 billion for special risk allowance, P3.65 billion for COVID-19 sickness and death compensation, and P1.4 billion for other benefits, such as meal, accommodation, and transportation allowance.
The DBM and the DOH agreed there was a need to urgently finalize the computation of the HEA claims in arrears to enable the DBM to determine if additional funding requirements were necessary despite the cumulatively released PHEBA allocations for health care and non-health-care workers.
The DBM urged the DOH to develop a comprehensive HEA mapping that would capture and present all PHEBA claims and payments by region/health facilities for the period covered by the benefit.
Data from the HEA mapping would be used to speed up the final determination of the amount of deficiency to cover the full settlement of arrears.
The DBM also suggested that the records be made public for transparency purposes.
“The DOH committed to submit the aforementioned HEA mapping with the final amount of computed PHEBA deficiencies not later than March this year, subject to the DBM’s validation based on submitted documents and the amounts reflected in the Health Emergency Allowance Processing System,” the DBM said.