THE PhilHealth Regional Office VIII (PRO VIII) bagged the Best Booth Award at the recently-held Anti Red Tape Caravan-Visayas, organized by the Civil Service Commission.

The activity held at the Leyte Normal University in Tacloban City was designed to showcase the services of participating government agencies. The primary audience included the university students of Tacloban City to instill in them the “consciousness and sense of involvement on good governance and anti corruption initiatives of the government.” The importance of the youth in improving government service was also underscored in this year’s theme, “#KontraRedTape: Kabataan, Kaakibat sa Mahusay na Pamamahala.”

The Best Booth Award was determined by two criteria: 1) compliance to the ARTA provisions (40%) and, 2) peoples’ choice (60%), which was the rating of the clients served during the exhibit.

Other winners in the best booth award were Pag-IBIG Fund (2nd place), Land Bank of the Philippines (3rd place), Commission on Higher Education (4th place) and GSIS (5th place). PhilHealth VIII’s Regional Vice President Walter Bacareza said that the award “validated the efforts of Team PhilHealth to provide the best service to the clients”. “At the onset, we already planned to ensure client satisfaction by providing the best booth set-up with complete array of services and additional perks for their enjoyment,” Bacareza added. An important part of the PhilHealth booth is the special lounge and fast lane for senior citizens, pregnant women and persons with disabilities.

Among the services offered by PhilHealth during the one-stop-shop caravan were ID and MDR printing, member registration, acceptance of premium payments, updating of membership records, and information dissemination. The students and even the staff of other participating agencies flocked to the PhilHealth booth to avail themselves of the different services and to try their luck in the pick-a-prize and roleta raffle promos.

PhilHealth promotional items such as umbrellas, eco bags, foldable fans, desk and wall calendars were given to the lucky winners. The interactive set-up also proved to be popular with the clients who gamely posed and had their photos taken with the instagram and PhilHealth ID photo frames.

On hand to lend support to the PhilHealth team was no less than PhilHealth’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Ramon F. Aristoza Jr. who lauded the team for a job well done. He also mentioned that with the latest win, PhilHealth became the grand slam winner in all three ARTA caravans. Earlier, the PhilHealth booths were chosen as the best in the first two ARTA Caravans held at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, Quezon City last January 25-26 and the Mindanao University of Science and Technology in Cagayan de Oro City last February 10. (Miramar Zabala)