DOF: P27-B PhilHealth fund paid to COVID-19 frontliners

The Department of Finance (DOF) said the bulk of the P60 billion remitted by the state-run insurer Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to the National Treasury last year was used to pay health emergency allowances for frontliners.

- By MARCO LUIS BEECH

Following the order to return the funds to PhilHealth, the DOF announced that P27.45 billion was given to health care workers who served at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The expansion of services requires the infusion of funds, and we in the revenue sector will do our job so that such an important public service will be financed,” the Finance department said.

“The DOF is happy that wasteful expenditures will now be rechanneled to hospital wards.”

Aside from frontliner allowances, the remitted funds also supported other priority programs, including P10 billion for medical assistance to indigent and financially incapacitated patients, P4.1 billion for the procurement of medical and primary care equipment.