Malacañang has announced that COVID-19 tests for OFWs are still free of charge.

This, as opposed to earlier reports of OFWs who were allegedly charged Php20,000 to get their COVID-19 test results faster.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque stated that the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) will be shouldering the cost of all OFWs’ reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests.

“Libre ang mga OFWs, ang magbabayad po niyan OWWA (Testing for OFWs is free, the OWWA will pay for the cost),” he said in a Palace press briefing.

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He said all OFWs’ tests are subject to reimbursement by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

“Subject naman talaga po for reimbursement ng PhilHealth ang test to be given to OFWs, at lahat naman po ng mga private labs providers know how they can collect from PhilHealth,” he said.

PhilHealth currently has an overdue balance of over PHP930 million to Philippine Red Cross (PRC) for COVID-19 testing of OFWs and other individuals.

The state health insurer said it would settle its obligations to PRC by Monday.

But even if the PhilHealth fails to pay the PRC, Roque reassured the public that there are many public and private laboratories capable of accepting COVID-19 swab samples including the Department of Health-Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (DOH-RITM) and Philippine General Hospital, as per reports from the Philippine News Agency.

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“Dinadala natin iyan sa mga government laboratories kagaya ng Lingad diyan po sa Pampanga dahil malaki rin ang kapasidad nila at mayroon ding mga government labs na nagti-test diyan – RITM, PGH,” he said.

He said PRC’s decision to stop conducting tests that are being charged to the PhilHealth will not affect free testing for OFWs.

“Marami naman po, hindi dahilan para tuluyang matigil ang testing ng mga OFWs dahil tumigil ang testing ng Red Cross,” he said.