Both the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Department of Health (DOH) should explain why payment for COVID-19 health workers was still proposed in the 2026 budget even if these were already paid in 2025, Lanao del Sur 1st District Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong said on Thursday.
In an ambush interview at the Batasang Pambansa complex, Adiong was asked about the Budget Amendments Review Sub-committee (BARSc) decision to realign the P6.8 billion for healthcare workers, which was made after consultation with the DOH.
Adiong said he does not know the exact details, but he also agreed that having line items for completed programs raises suspicions.
‘Well, we cannot answer for DBM [.] I for one do not know how, but I’m sure the DBM has the perfect [.] explanation for that. But I cannot quite for certain give you a direct answer to that,’ Adiong, a vice chairperson of the House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations, told reporters. ‘Well, one would think of it that way,’ Adiong said when asked if having the line item for healthcare workers’ allowances was suspicious. ‘Because if it is already paid, of course, it should not be there. So again, it’s something that our executive department (should explain), but I’m pretty sure that they have the answer for that.’
Adiong explained that the discovery of the line item for health workers’ payments was made after agencies approached the BARSc, a sub-panel of the appropriations committee, about projects that they prefer to be prioritized.
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DOH apparently informed the BARSc that they have already made the payments, and therefore can be removed from the proposed 2026 budget.
`It has already been paid’
‘We also rely on the data from each departments, that’s why that is one of our recommendations – since it has already been paid, so we moved from one budget entry to another budget entry within the department that requested for such amount [.] when we had the budget line items and there are requests per agency, we decided what would be the priority,’ Adiong said.
‘So when we had the initial meeting and they transmitted that to the agencies concerned, they said, ‘no [.] this is our priority.’ Others said that ‘this is already finished, so we might as well move this to another budget item.’ So that’s what happened,’ he added.
This is the reason, Adiong said, as to why they realigned several items under the DOH budget.
‘That’s why the action of the BARSc since it has been paid, so we have to realign that from the items, budget entries that we have organized,’ he noted.
On September 2, the DBM announced that it had released the P6.8 billion final balance for the payment of health emergency allowance to healthcare workers who served during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, from 2021 to 2023. According to Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, she has approved the special allotment release order (SARO) amounting to P6.767 billion for the DOH on September 1 for the mandated Public Health Emergency Benefits and Allowances (PHEBA).
The amount covers a total of 1,411,546 claims from 2021 to 2023 from local government units (LGUs) and private health facilities, state universities, and other institutions across various regions.
‘In compliance with the directive of our President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and because we recognize the importance of the services of our workers in the health sector, especially during the pandemic, we have approved the release of the SARO to the DOH amounting to P6.7 billion to pay the declared final balance of our government’s obligation for the HEA of healthcare and non-healthcare workers,’ Pangandaman said in a statement.
When asked if it is possible that DOH failed to anticipate that the P6.8 billion balance would not be paid in 2025 – and therefore needed to place it again in the 2026 budget – Adiong said he cannot answer on behalf of the agencies involved.
‘Well, I cannot give you an answer, as I said, because everything would be hypothetical on my part, I do not want to presume or to [.] provide you an answer because we do not know how they actually prepared,’ he said.
‘As far as we are concerned in the BARSc, again, there’s a close coordination with the agencies and we from the BARSc side – even before the BARSc, the House leadership saw what items had duplicates,’ he added.
This is not the first time, however, that projects already completed have been listed in the 2026 National Expenditures Program. Early September, Deputy Speaker and Antipolo Rep. Ronaldo Puno suggested that the NEP be sent back to the DBM due to several problems – like the discovery of multiple or redundant entries. Puno revealed that Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) programs at the district level still received allocations despite being completed, citing the case of Marikina Rep. Marcelino Teodoro, who experienced the issue.
Puno said he also checked the allocations for his own district – the first district of Antipolo – and he found out that projects provided by the district and regional engineering office of the DPWH were no longer in the NEP.