The budget allocated for COVID-19 benefits and allowances for healthcare workers would only be enough for the first three months of 2023, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday.

At the House committee on appropriations hearing, DOH Officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said: “We have submitted a total of P76 billion for us to be able to sustain these benefits and allowances to our healthcare workers. But we were only provided around 3 months of this P76 billion that we needed.”

“We were given 19 billion for programmed funds. Then there’s also unprogrammed funds worth P18 billion, I think. But this would only suffice for the first three months of the year. The rest of the year, we won’t have funds for the allowances of healthcare workers.

ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro previously asked why some health workers have not received their benefits.

Vergeire said from September 2020 to June 2021, 492 healthcare workers have received their special risk allowance (SRA) while disbursement is continuing for about 56,000 workers.

More than 55,800 health workers have not received their SRA, she told the House panel.

Vergeire said the DOH is in talks with the Department and Management(DBM) to provide P1.04 billion more for health workers' allowance.

The DOH said since the start of the pandemic, 62,429 people have died from COVID-19.

Epidemiology Bureau Director Alethea de Guzman said out of this number, 125 were healthcare workers.

Vergeire said that the DBM approved P301 billion from their proposed P325 billion budget.

This is 10 percent higher than their allocated budget in the 2022 General Appropriations Act (GAA). Jaspearl Tan/DMS