OFWs demand gov’t info campaign
on Medicare fund transfer
by JULIE JAVELLANA-SANTOS
OFW Journalism Consortium Inc.

MANILA -- SAUDI-BASED purchasing officer Ronnie Abeto is starting to buy time for his health: getting to learn how OWWA-Medicare can protect him when the money would be moved by end-March to another fund manager.

Abeto told the OFW Journalism Consortium that most overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) like him lacked information on the transfer of OFW money in the OWWA-Medicare to the Philippine Health Insurance Co. (PHIC) and the transfer's impact on his benefits as Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) member.

Currently, Abeto is backed by a great medical plan: his company, the Saudi Arabia branch of Snamprogetti, will shoulder all his medical expenses while he's in Al Khobar. But that medical coverage is limited to him and will stop once he retires and goes back to the Philippines, which he plans to do by 2010.

As member, Abeto and other OFWs who pay OWWA $25 for every contract, are "entitled to services and benefits over and above the provisions of the employment contract, offer of employers, or the laws of the receiving country".

According to Article 7 of the OWWA Omnibus Policies, a member is entitled to several benefits, from life insurance to on-site services. The latter includes medical assistance provided by a Health Insurance Fund (HIF) managed by the OWWA.

As mandated by Executive Order (EO) 392, a portion of the HIF shall be transferred to PHIC, popularly known as Philhealth.

The EO cited that "the Fund to be transferred shall be in the amount actuarially needed to fund the basic OFW Medicare Program for a period of one year to ensure continuity of service to OFWs."

Philhealth President Francisco T. Duque III said in an interview the fund transfer takes effect 60 days from date of publication of EO 392 last January 27, 2005.

Duque has said the transfer of program administration from OWWA to PhilHealth, "is a major step towards fulfilling our mandate of providing health insurance coverage to all Filipinos".
However, the 45-year-old Abeto asked: "How will this facilitate medical coverage if they are only going to transfer only a portion of the entire fund?"

Probe team
The transfer has caught the eye of lawmakers who said they will try to beat the deadline set by EO 392.

Representative Edcel Lagman, head of the Special Committee on Overseas Workers Affairs at the House of Representatives saw fit to investigate the transfer just before the Holy Week session break.

The Lower House was egged on by numerous resolutions and house bills seeking to cancel the transfer filed by Representatives Liza Maza, Crispin Beltran, Satur Ocampo, Teodoro Casino, Rafael Mariano, Joel Virador, Imelda Marcos, Roseller Barinaga, and Rodriguez Dadivas.

Also investigating is the Senate Committee on Labor headed by Senator Jinggoy Estrada and his mother Senator Loi Ejercito. Ejercito is questioning the retention of P3.5 billion by OWWA while Lagman said "why transfer at all?"

EO 392 amended EO 182 that provided for the transfer of the funds.

Saying that EO 182 signed in 2003 did not differentiate between the amount to be transferred to PHIC and the amount to be retained and used by OWWA exclusively for implementing a supplemental health benefit package for OFWs, President Gloria Arroyo amended EO 182's section. The amended section said a remaining portion of the Health Insurance Fund shall be retained and used by OWWA exclusively for implementing a supplemental health benefit package for OFWs.

Duque has said only P530 million is being transferred from the total P4-billion OWWA-HIF.
Lagman said he had nothing against the transfer, just on the lack of information about it.
"I am giving you fair warning that we will look closely into your fund utilization and collection," Lagman warned OWWA Administrator Marianito Roque.

However, an OFW community leader in Saudi Arabia said OFWs can no longer question the legality of the transfer.

Republic Act 7875, which created the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP) and EO 392 have sealed the issue of transfer, Rashid Fabricante said in an email to the OFW Journalism Consortium. The head of Riyadh-based OFW group Pusong Mamon Task Force added that these documents are backed up by board resolutions from OWWA and Philhealth.

Fabricante, a communications engineer who has been in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia longer than Abeto, echoed the purchasing officer's opinion.

"If Philhealth was guilty of oversight, the motive for the transfer remains questionable with the several revisions of the EO," Fabricante said, referring to government's decision to allow OWWA to keep some of the money.

Hedging
EO 392 cited the remaining portion of the HIF shall be retained and used by OWWA exclusively for implementing a supplemental health benefit package for OFWs.
According to OWWA documents, the P3.5-billion remaining in the Medicare funds after the transfer would be used to add benefits for returned ailing OFWs, like providing prostheses (artificial limbs) and psychiatric care.

The transfer shall in no case result in any diminution or discontinuity of the existing benefit package, EO 392 added.

Roque said during the congressional hearing led by Lagman that "the schedule of benefits will be maintained" after the transfer and that OFWs would benefit from the speed with which Philhealth could verify claims. He said that processing of claims from the agency he leads takes about 8 months. Roque didn't say how much time would be cut with the transfer.

PHIC is a government-owned and controlled corporation that was born of transfers. It assumed the responsibility of administering the former Medicare program for government and private sector employees with transfer of P105 million from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) in 1997 and P14 billion from the Social Security System (SSS) in 1998.

Duque claims the GOCC has P51 billion in assets. Getting all of the OWWA money would boost PHIC's assets to P55 billion. But with EO 392, PHIC could only get P530 million before April 1 because, as Duque said, that is what is "actuarially needed to fund the basic OFW Medicare program for one year to ensure continuity of service to OFWs".

An actuarial computation, according to the Actuarial Society of the Philippines, shows the fund's ability to pay for all benefits if all people promised with these benefits ask simultaneously for what are due them.

However, Abeto said what might happen is that like the main OWWA Welfare Fund, 22 percent of the retained money will be spent for the salaries of employees and other overhead expenses. But the money, he suspects, wouldn't directly go to the welfare of OFWs who contribute to the funds in the first place.

Need to know
Abeto said the government should have held public consultations so that OFWs learn more of their benefits from the transfer. But transfer or none, OFW Ernesto Muñoz said many of his countrymen working in Riyadh are not well oriented on their health benefits.
OFWs have not been given proper information in pre-departure orientation seminars by any recruitment agencies about the benefits they could get from OWWA or Philhealth, Muñoz, who works for the Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Co., said.

"Some say OWWA has some [medical and health] programs available on the website as advertised in television programs like] TFC [The Filipino Channel]," Muñoz said. But, he added, not all OFWs are computer literate enough to go to OWWA's website and search for the benefits that they could get.

"How about the domestic helpers, the laborers, [with no access to such information]?" Muñoz asked. end