VOLUNTEERISM is an act of generosity. It should never become an excuse for the government to obtain essential labor at poverty-level compensation.
Yet this is precisely what has happened to thousands of barangay health workers (BHWs) who have spent years — even decades — holding together the country’s grassroots healthcare system. In Iloilo Province alone, more than 11,800 BHWs serve 42 municipalities and Passi City. Many receive only ₱1,000 to ₱2,000 a month, depending on what their barangays can afford.
That amount is not meaningful compensation. It can barely cover transportation, meals and other expenses incurred while performing their duties. Calling it an “honorarium” does not make the arrangement fair. It merely gives institutional underpayment a respectable-sounding name.
BHWs conduct health education campaigns, take vital signs, monitor sick residents, assist in disease-prevention programs and refer patients to rural health units. They help carry out vaccination drives and campaigns against dengue and other preventable diseases. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they continued entering communities and assisting residents despite the danger to their own health.
These are essential public-health functions yet BHWs are denied the compensation, protection and security that regular employment provides. If BHWs suddenly stopped working, the consequences would quickly be felt in barangay health stations, rural health units and vulnerable households.
The injustice becomes even more glaring when length of service is considered. Some BHWs in Iloilo are more than 80 years old. The province’s longest-serving workers have reportedly devoted as many as 48 years to community healthcare. Violeta Gicana, president of the BHW Iloilo Federation, has served for 46 years.
Nearly half a century of continuous public service should lead to retirement security, insurance and a stable income. Instead, many BHWs remain classified as volunteers, dependent on modest allowances and occasional cash assistance.
This is no longer volunteerism. It is government dependence on cheap labor.
The Senate’s unanimous approval of the Magna Carta of Barangay Health Workers is therefore a long-overdue attempt to correct a structural injustice. The measure proposes at least ₱3,000 in monthly benefits, along with transportation and hazard allowances, insurance coverage, mental health services, free legal assistance, cash gifts and loyalty incentives. It also provides civil service eligibility for qualified workers and opens opportunities for training, scholarships and plantilla positions.
But even ₱3,000 should be viewed as a floor — not the final measure of what BHWs deserve. The amount remains modest when weighed against their workload, exposure to health risks and importance to the public healthcare system.
More importantly, the proposed benefits must be supported by adequate and continuing national funding. The government must not pass a Magna Carta, celebrate its enactment and then leave cash-strapped barangays to finance the mandate. Doing so would preserve the same inequality in which BHWs in wealthier communities receive more while those in poorer barangays remain neglected.
National standards must be accompanied by national responsibility.
The practice of denying barangay allowances to senior-citizen BHWs because they already receive social pensions must also end. A social pension is assistance for an elderly person’s basic needs; it is not payment for continuing public-health work. To use one benefit as a reason to withhold another is both illogical and unjust. Age does not erase the value of the services they continue to provide.
Government must eventually confront the deeper issue: many BHWs are volunteers only on paper. Their work is regular, necessary and deeply embedded in the delivery of public healthcare. Qualified and long-serving workers should be given clear pathways toward permanent positions, standardized compensation and retirement protection.
For decades, barangay health workers have filled the gaps of an underfunded healthcare system with dedication and sacrifice. That sacrifice must not be endlessly exploited.
The country owes them more than gratitude. It owes them justice—and justice begins by paying essential workers fairly.
