Sunday, August 9, 2009



Romarate top health benefactor in Caraga
By: Roberto “Jun” Parada
Cong. Guillermo “Jun” Romarate recently made history as the first high-ranking government official to breach the 30,000 mark as sponsor of Philhealth cards being distributed to indigent families either in a congressional-wide or province-wide scale categories in Caraga Region. The feat earned for him the distinction as the top health benefactor from among the five provinces in the region, it was learned.
Official records from the Philhealth Caraga Regional Office revealed that Cong. Romarate were able to subscribe and distribute 34,000 Philhealth cards to indigent families in the second congressional district of Surigao del Norte which covered the towns of Alegria, Tubod, Mainit, Placer, Bacuag, Gigaquit, Claver, Taganaan, Sison, San Francisco, Malimono and the City of Surigao. He earmarked more than ten million pesos from his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) for the largest health benefit coverage in the region’s medical history.
Rodrigo Ariar, Philhealth provincial head of Surigao Del Norte, explained that a Philhealth card given to a single family would usually benefit five members of the household. “So, if we multiply 34,000 by 5, we simply have 170,000 people as direct beneficiaries of the health care program of Cong. Jun Romarate”, Ariar concluded.
In an exclusive interview, Romarate explained that his massive distribution of Philhealth cards to thousands of poor beneficiaries reflected his rare concern for the health aspect of his constituents believing that progress would only start rolling with a healthy people behind it. For him, the true wealth of a nation is its healthy people – apparently putting emphasis, in a large-scale context, to the popular saying “health is wealth”. He stressed that his distribution of the health cards was non-political or had no emphasis on the political affiliations of the recipients.

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