Executive Secretary Ralph Recto revealed that part of the ₱60 billion transferred from the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to the National Treasury was used to pay overdue benefits and allowances for healthcare and non-healthcare workers who served during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We wanted to have health to health lahat. Apparently, possibly hindi napunta health to health. But a big portion of that was used to pay the public health emergency benefits and allowances for healthcare and non-healthcare workers during COVID-19,” Recto said.
He added that ₱28 billion of the transferred PhilHealth funds went specifically to COVID-19 workers.
Furthermore, the government released over ₱120 billion from programmed and unprogrammed funds to settle remaining pandemic benefits.
“Ito ‘yung mga pinangakuan natin to pay them during the pandemic na hindi nabayaran. So under our administration, we paid them from programmed and unprogrammed,” he explained.