Logan Weaver / Unsplash" width="100%" />
President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered state-owned health insurance corporation, Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), to suspend the collection of higher premiums from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), his spokesman Harry Roque announced in a virtual presser today.
“While we’re in the midst of a crisis, the President has decided not to implement additional burden to our OFWs, especially during this time where so many of them who were repatriated have lost their jobs,” Roque said in Filipino.
The spokesman said that premium payments in the meantime will be voluntary.
“The President directed PhilHealth to make the payment of PhilHealth premiums voluntary for OFWs,” he added.
Read: 5 Filipinos die from COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia, stranded workers to be repatriated
The statement comes after labor group Migrante International along with over 170 groups yesterday protested a recent 3% hike in PhilHealth premiums to be mandatorily collected from OFWs. Overseas workers have likewise started an online petition over a week ago calling for the withdrawal of the insurance corporation’s memorandum that was made public on April 22. The petition has collected over 400,000 signatures as of this writing.
Under PhilHealth Circular No. 2020-0014, OFWs earning salaries of PHP10,000 (US$197) to PHP60,000 (US$1,185) will be required to pay 3% of their salaries monthly to the insurance company effective this year. The premium is an increase from last year’s 2.75%.
“I believe that we OFWs and our dependents have been already struggling amidst this Pandemic and yet Philhealth had issued a very unfair memo regarding premium payments. I believe that this is already too much of them to ask for an interest rate and a penalty which is very unfair and inhumane for those who travel away from their families to work,” the petition read.
“It is very unfortunate that they call OFWs modern heroes and yet they penalize us with such directives. We urge the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (Philhealth) to reverse this directive as this is unfair and an abuse to our migrant workers,” it added.
Women’s group Gabriela Women’s party echoed the sentiment in a statement to reporters, calling out PhilHealth and the Duterte administration for its “lack of respect for workers, like OFWs,” and accused the government insurer of treating OFWs like “mere milking cows for government funds.”
Migrante International said that it has “already expressed opposition to the proposed collection” since last year. It also urged the government to “enforce a moratorium on all state exactions at this period of the COVID-19 pandemic and recession,” and to “establish a genuine universal health care program through free medical and health services,” as well as “enhance and strengthen the public health care system in the Philippines.”
Health Secretary Francisco Duque today in a tweet, called for the suspension of the premium hike “in light of COVID-19 and its economic impact on OFWs.”
