Bangsamoro health workers get stalled allowances

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The office of the newly-designated Bangsamoro health minister has started releasing the unpaid Health Emergency Allowance (HEA) of field employees that were stalled for so long due to past management issues.

Nurses and midwives in the Ministry of Health-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao told reporters on Wednesday morning that their regional office started releasing the delayed HEAs last Monday, something that they have waited for so long.

Radio stations here stated in reports on Wednesday that the settlement of the delayed HEAs and other special stipends of health workers of MoH-BARMM was among the concerns that the physician-ophthalmologist Kadil Sinolinding Jr. had promised to address after he was designated health minister on May 6, 2024 by Bangsamoro Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim.

Sinolinding, also a concurrent member of the 80-seat Bangsamoro regional parliament, had served as regional health secretary of the now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao that got replaced with a more politically and administratively empowered BARMM, a product of 22 years of peace talks between Malacañang and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Sinolinding’s office had earlier released the delayed three-month, P4,000 special monthly incentives, or a total of P12,000 cash, to each of the 72 barangay health workers employed by the municipal government of Sapa-Sapa, a remote island town in Tawi-Tawi.

The autonomous region covers the provinces of Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato.