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The state health insurer of the Philippines, which every Filipino has been enrolled in automatically since the Universal Health Care Act of 2019. It pays for cancer care through case rates, a set of catastrophic packages for named cancers called the Z Benefits, and since August 2025 a package of outpatient cancer screening tests.
PhilHealth, at Citystate Centre, 709 Shaw Boulevard, Pasig City, runs the National Health Insurance Program. The Universal Health Care Act (Republic Act 11223, approved 20 February 2019) states that every Filipino citizen shall be automatically included in the programme, splits members into direct contributors, who pay premiums, and indirect contributors, whose premiums the national government subsidises, and requires that PhilHealth's benefit packages be based on positive recommendations of health technology assessment. The National Integrated Cancer Control Act (Republic Act 11215) directs it to expand its packages to cover screening, diagnosis, treatment, supportive care, survivorship, rehabilitation and end-of-life care for all types and stages of cancer.
Its Z Benefits pay a fixed package for named cancers at contracted hospitals. PhilHealth's benefits page, read on 4 November 2026, lists standard-risk acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in children aged 1 to under 10 (P500,000), breast cancer stage 0 to IV (P1.4 million), low to intermediate risk prostate cancer (P100,000), cervical cancer (P120,000 or P175,000 depending on the radiotherapy) and colon and rectal cancer (P150,000 to P400,000 by stage). The breast package was raised from P100,000 by PhilHealth Circular 2024-0007, effective 30 March 2024, which allots 1,000,008 pesos of it to trastuzumab in three tranches of six cycles; PhilHealth said no co-payment applies in ward accommodation and 21 health facilities were contracted for the package in April 2024. Radiotherapy is paid at P3,900 a session with cobalt and P5,850 with a linear accelerator.
PhilHealth Circular 2025-0014 added outpatient screening tests from 14 August 2025, requested by the member's registered primary care provider and paid at fixed rates with no co-payment: mammogram P2,610, breast ultrasound P1,350, low-dose chest CT P7,220, alpha-fetoprotein P1,230, liver ultrasound P960 and screening colonoscopy P23,640. Circulars 2025-0025 and 2025-0027 set the eligibility for bowel screening (adults aged 45 to 75, or with risk factors) and lung screening (adults aged 50 to 80 with at least 30 pack-years who smoke or quit within 15 years, or with a family history and a smoking history).
The coordinates are a Pasig City centroid, not the street address.
Early detection with navigation to treatment is likely to be good value in the Philippines, and the authors call for research on the best model for full implementation.
A package that pays for the whole course of treatment, delivered by a multidisciplinary team, kept most patients on treatment; the authors judge the survival comparable with data from more developed countries.
Shares Modelling the health, financial protection and equity impacts of upscaling the ACT NOW early intervention breast cancer pilot program in the Philippines: an extended cost-effectiveness analysis, Department of Health, Philippines.
Shares Philippine General Hospital, Department of Health, Philippines.
Shares Department of Health, Philippines, Cervical cancer, Lung cancer (all types), Breast cancer (all types).
Shares Trastuzumab, Cervical cancer, Breast cancer (all types), Colorectal cancer.
Shares Trastuzumab, Breast cancer (all types).
Shares Trastuzumab, Breast cancer (all types).
Shares Trastuzumab, Colorectal cancer.
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