PhilHealth Sabado exceeds target in Samar

By NINFA B. QUIRANTE
October 4, 2010

CATBALOGAN, Samar  –  Philhealth Sabado target in Samar exceeded its target!

This was the conclusion drawn out by Task Force PhilHealth Sabado (TFPS) after its initial target of 500 grew into 895. The crowd that swamped in the Samar Gymnasium in downtown Catbalogan was so huge that the Task Force thought It was unmanageable. PNP Catbalogan provided some five policemen to assist in the crowd control.

As the PhilHealth registrants were seated a brief program ensued with DOH Representative Atty Annabelle De Veyra and the TFPS members told the audience the vision of President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino lll to achieve a universal health insurance coverage.

De Veyra read the Tagalog message of DOH Secretary Ona. “Half of the whole budget of social and health services has been alloted to the 21.6 M members as of June 2010.” She mentioned especially the sidewalk vendors, tricycle drivers, farmers and fisherfolks as targets of the program.

“I urge all the local chief executives (LCEs) to sponsor all their indigent constituents for only P100 a month,” De Veyra read Ona’s prepared message. The speech also thanked the LCEs who are continuously enrolling their people in health insurance, also the private sector who supported the nationwide PhilHealth registration.

As if on cue, Samar Gov Sharee Ann Tan responded positively by saying she was willing to sponsor some 49 thousand families in the whole province.

The Task Force learned later that the number of registrants exceeded the target as some came to register under Governor Tan’s program.

At least some ten paying members showed up. One former OFW who now works as ‘job order’ employee of the province confided to PIA how PhilHealth has helped her in hospitalization in the past. She claimed that a hundred pesos is too little for the ‘bigger’ benefits a family can have as PhilHealth member.

A family of four from Barangay 13 came, they did not know that only the head of the family was needed. Families came dragging along the elderly along with mothers nursing their babies.

Some misinformed thought it was a new registration for Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).