ANGELES CITY – Mayor Edgardo “Ed” Pamintuan pushed for the sponsorship of at least 18,000 residents in this city to become Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) members, allotting more than P10 million for his project.
PhilHealth-Angeles City manager Annabelle Imana disclosed that Pamintuan had “aggressively worked” for the membership of at least 10,000 indigent residents for this year in line with the city government’s priority project on health. There were 8,000 PhilHealth members in 2011 sponsored by the city.
Imana said the Pamintuan government is set to pay PhilHealth at least P5.2 million “in a few months” as part of their agreement signed recently by both parties.
“It’s commendable when the Local Government Unit (LGU) not just supports PhilHealth but goes out of its way to bring the national health insurance to almost all their constituents, especially the poor ones,” said Imana.
She added that the mayor had targeted to sponsor as much as 20,000 residents in 2012.
Imana stressed that “I am more impressed with the way Angeles City determines the real poor ones needing PhilHealth insurance.”
For his part, Mayor Pamintuan said “we hope there will be bigger income for the city to help more people.”
In a phone interview on Tuesday, City Administrator Dennis Albert Pamintuan, also a lawyer, said they had almost P1.2 billion income last year. He added that “for the first time, we had no budget deficit unlike during the time of former Mayor Blueboy (Nepomuceno).”
The city administrator expressed confidence that they will generate more than P1.2 billion total income this year.
