MANILA, 9 August 2003 — Non-government organizations here yesterday decried the apparent politicization of the transfer of OWWA-Medicare funds and programs to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

Philippine Migrant Rights Watch (PMRW) president Carmelita Nuqui said this was the content of a letter to President Gloria Arroyo from PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Francisco Duque before the transfer was formalized in Executive Order 182.

“The proposed transfer will have a significant bearing on the 2004 elections,” Duque said in his letter regarding the transfer, dated Nov. 20, 2002. The funds supposedly total about P3.5 billion.

In answer, Nuqui said “how could we expect then that PhilHealth will prioritize the health needs of our overseas workers above anything else?”

EO 182 transferred OWWA-Medicare funds and functions to PhilHealth. The said EO mandated the transfer within 60 days from the effectivity of the EO. The implementing rules for EO 182 were to be drawn up by PhilHealth in consultation with OWWA. OFWs were not mentioned.

In fact, the lack of consultation with OFWs on the matter was repeatedly pointed out by Nuqui and other migrant related NGOs under the PMRW, the Philippine Council on OFW Reintegration (PhilCORE) and the Economic Resource Center for OFWs (ERCOF), said.

These NGO groups said the fact that EO 182 was signed by Arroyo on Feb. 14, 2003, a day after she signed into law Republic Act 9189, the Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003 was merely coincidental.

But Bishop Ramon Arguelles of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples (CBCP-ECMI) said “(the signing) February 13 was premeditated delay and (the signing) February 14 was premeditated haste.”

The CBCP-ECMI banded together with the PMRW, PhilCORE and ERCOF and held a joint press conference condemning the transfer of OWWA-Medicare which they said was done underhandedly. The three groups demanded the recall of EO 182.

They also said that the board of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) should first be reconstituted to include more OFW representatives.

“After all, that money comes from the OFWs,” Estrella Dizon-Anonuevo, executive director of Balikabayani and chairwoman of NGOs in PhilCORE said.

She added “it is high time to look into replacing the OWWA Board with OFWs and with people who have the interest of the OFWs at heart.”

Anonuevo said OWWA should also restore its suspended General Financial Assistance Program (GFAP) which had been recalled, supposedly to make way for the creation of a new package of benefits for its member OFWs. This program, she said, consisted of burial and medical assistance, and aid in times of calamities, man-made or natural amounting to P15,000. “This might not be much, but to a former OFW who is sick or disabled, this is a lot!”

ERCOF president Idelfonso Bagasao said the group also asked for a financial audit of the OWWA fund with the participation of OFWs and migrant NGOs, and for an accounting of the P250 million supposedly turned over to Ambassador Roy Cimatu for the use of the Middle East Preparedness Team (MEPT) early this year.

Migrante International charged that the transfer was the handiwork of Arroyo together with Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas.

According to Migrante, there was a secret OWWA Board of Trustees Meeting held early this week in which Board Chair Sto. Tomas was intent on railroading a resolution to allow the anomalous transfer.

“This is the latest Macapagal-Arroyo administration effort to abandon its responsibility to provide health care services to OFWs and the people,” Migrante said in a statement.

Migrante said the current administration’s feverish drive to transfer the OFW health care fund from OWWA to PhilHealth would entail a possible increase in the P900 Medicare fee charged to OFWs.