Philhealth run to encore for the blind in February

By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- The Philhealth Run, the biggest nationwide simultaneous foot race-for-a-cause hatched by the government medical insurance system last year, will go for an encore on February 15 in 13 cities representing 13 regions of the country.

 Philhealth launched the second edition of the four-bracket race last Friday morning -  100 days before the fire-off – with simultaneous tree-planting and press conferences,  in the cities of Quezon, Baguio, Dagupan,

Tuguegarao, Olongapo, Lucena, Lipa, Naga, Iloilo, Cebu, Tacloban, Davao and Koronadal.

Philhealth officials in the Cordillera  expressed optimism last year’s over-all regional  net from registration fees and sponsorship  totalling  P1.4 million would be surpassed with  the scrapping of a fifty-fifty sharing  of the total proceeds by national and local beneficiary institutions.  

Half of last year’s  nation-wide earnings   went to the Fabella Medical Center and the National Children’s Hospital as national beneficiaries, with the regions retaining half of what they had respectively raised for their respective local beneficiaries.   

This year, all the net funds will go to the Northern Luzon Association for the Blind, a prestigious Baguio-based learning center for visually impaired children and adults which is facing potential financial difficulty due to the end of a grant agreement with one of its major institutional supporters.

NLAB director Gloria Jasa signed the memorandum of agreement with Philhealth regional vice-president Jerry Ibay and regional health director Valeriano Lopez  during the launching at the Philhealth-Cordillera office at the Teachers Camp here.

Maggie del Rosario, Philhealth’s regional public relations officer, said the fun run will be subject to full transparency and will be covered by the guidelines set by the Department of Social Welfare and Development providing 85 percent of the amount raised going to the beneficiary and 15 percent for the operation of the run-for-a-cause.

“This means the NLAB will provide Philhealth periodic reports on the use of the amount to the turned over to the same, in the same token that the previous beneficiary  continues to give periodic reports.

Last year’s local beneficiary was the Helping Hands, Healing Hearts Ministries, a half-way house for sick children and their watchers at Camp 7 which almost closed due to financial difficulties.

As in the initial run, Philhealth has asked veteran race organizer Rosario “Che” Velasco-Alberto to head the technical team to run the race divided into the 3K, 5K, 10K and 20K distance categories. – Ramon Dacawi