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| The demand letter sent by PhilHealth to Jackie |
A Filipina domestic worker in Hong Kong was shocked
to receive a letter from the local PhilHealth office in her Aklan hometown
recently, demanding that she pay back monthly premium contributions from November
2019 until July last year.
According to Jackie T., the letter which was dated
August last year, was received by her sister only this month.
The letter signed by the officer-in-charge of the PhilHealth
Kalibo office said Jackie had incurred “deficiencies” since November 2019,
which she must pay, with compounded monthly interest not exceeding 1.5%.
Even at the current minimum wage of a domestic
worker in Hong Kong of nearly $5,000 or about P37,500, that would already
amount to P1,875 in monthly contribution, based on the 5% charge stipulated for self-earning individuals,
including overseas Filipino workers.
That means, for the five years and three months that
she was said to be in arrears, with the prescribed contribution of between 3
and 5 percent of her monthly income, Jackie will have to pay PhilHealth no less
than Php100,000 in total, apart from the compounded monthly interest in penalties.
“Kalokohan na yata
ito, hindi naman sana mandatory kasi hindi naman nagagamit dito sa Hong Kong,”
said Jackie.
(This is crazy, the payment should not be mandatory
since we do not even get to use the PhilHealth coverage in Hong Kong).
Like all migrant workers in Hong Kong, Jackie is
covered by an employee compensation insurance that their employers are required
to pay for under the law.
The insurance payout is usually more than enough to
pay for the nearly free medical treatment that all Hong Kong residents, including
migrant domestic workers, could avail of from public hospitals.
The benefit extends even to costly medical treatments
like chemotherapy or dialysis, for as long as the employer is willing to continue
to be bound by the FDW contract.
In contrast, a PhilHealth coverage in the
Philippines is rarely enough to cover the costs of medical care and hospitalization,
much less if expensive medical procedure or treatment is needed.
Dolores Balladares, chairperson of United Filipinos –
Migrante Hong Kong, was appalled by the letter sent to Jackie, as widespread
OFW protests forced former President Rodrigo Duterte to halt the forced
collection of premiums from them at the height of the pandemic in 2020.
It has not been revived since.
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Even at the height of the pandemic Balladares (center) and her group took to the streets
to protest the mandatory and far more expensive PhilHealth charges on OFWs |
“Kailangan
talagang tutulan yan,” said Balladares, who promised to look into the issue
more closely. (That should definitely be opposed).
PhilHealth has received a lot of flak recently after
it transferred P89.9 billion in excess funds to the national treasury. Many
people said the money should have been spent instead on better services and bigger
subsidies for members with critical illnesses.
The outrage prompted the two houses of Congress to
strip the agency of its subsidy for the next fiscal year, which had originally
been pegged at Php74.31 billion.
Ironically, while PhilHealth Aklan acknowledged the “temporary
suspension” of the provisions of R.A. 11223 due to the pandemic, it said in the
letter to Jackie that its provisions still apply.
This, it maintained, is because there is “automatic
entitlement to benefits guaranteed under the UHC Act” for all registered
Filipino members.
While the law explicitly provides fines and penalties
for employers who fail to remit their share of the monthly PhilHealth premiums
for their workers, it is silent on the consequences of delayed, or non-payment
of contributions by self-paying members like OFWs.
It can only be imputed that apart from being charged
a monthly interest on their unpaid contributions they may also be deprived of discounts
on their medical bills. But for OFWs in Hong Kong, this may be irrelevant.
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