By Filomeno Sta. Ana III and Pia Rodrigo
On Saturday, Sept. 20, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. announced that the P60 billion diverted from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to the National Treasury in 2024, which was strongly opposed by civil society and challenged in a Supreme Court petition (GR 274778, Pimentel vs. House of Representatives), would be returned to PhilHealth.
He cited savings from Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) projects as the reason the P60 billion would be returned to PhilHealth.
President Marcos’ decision to return the P60 billion that the National Government took away from PhilHealth is the result of relentless, sustained, and immense public pressure, which started in July 2024. It is the result of the coming together of diverse segments of society: healthcare workers, labor groups, youth groups, patients’ groups, and government workers, among many others. It is thus the people’s victory.
But if the intent of the Marcos administration is to placate an angry nation and defuse a political crisis in the wake of the controversy surrounding anomalous flood control projects and massive corruption in the General Appropriations Act, its pivot is clumsy. And its concessions — e.g., throwing former Speaker Martin Romualdez, the president’s cousin and strategic political ally, under the bus and returning the seized PhilHealth funds — are too little, too late.
“Tinimbang ka ngunit kulang (you’ve been weighed and found wanting).” We explain why.
Accountability does not end in rearranging the leadership in Congress. Let us not forget that the corrupted budgets in 2024 and 2025 were the handiwork of both Congress and the Executive.
Congress — through a special provision in the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA), which the President signed — enabled the unconstitutional transfer of funds from PhilHealth and the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) to the National Government.
The coup de grâce, following Congress authorization, was the memorandum circulars released by the Department of Finance (DoF) that directed PhilHealth and PDIC to remit P89.9 billion and P107.23 billion to the National Treasury, respectively. (PhilHealth actually ended up transferring P60 billion of the P89.9 billion, for the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order that stopped the final installment from being remitted to the National Treasury.)
It is ironic, therefore, that the DoF issued a statement welcoming the return of PhilHealth’s P60 billion when the fund transfer was ordered by the Finance department in the first place. Just a few months ago, in April, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto himself delivered an impassioned speech at the Supreme Court oral arguments, defending the fund transfer and claiming that the diverted PhilHealth funds used for infrastructure were still beneficial to health, given that new roads facilitate access to healthcare.
Moreover, the defunding of PhilHealth is not limited to the illegal transfer of its exclusive funds. In the 2025 national budget that Congress and the President both approved, PhilHealth received a budget of zero. This is a blatant violation of the Sin Tax Law (Republic Act 10351), which provides the earmarking of sin tax revenues for PhilHealth and the Universal Health Care Act (Republic Act 11223), which ensures government funding for the annual premiums of the indirect contributors (i.e., mainly the poor).
For the proposed 2026 budget of PhilHealth, the subsidy is a pitiful P53.3 billion, an amount way below the earmarked revenues from sin taxes and an amount that is woefully inadequate to cover the contributions of indirect contributors.
In light of all this, the return of P60 billion does not fully account for the egregious defunding of PhilHealth. The Supreme Court oral arguments on the PhilHealth case debunked the misconception that PhilHealth had excess funds, rather, it exposed the Commission on Audit findings over the past years: that PhilHealth’s finances have been in the red. In a Sept. 8 Yellow Pad column by Dr. Jeepy Perez, he noted that with new benefits on the way (mostly a result of political pressure), PhilHealth faces both a financial and technical crisis, and that it will exceed its benefit budgets of P271 billion by over P34 billion by the end of the year.
Worse, the gesture of returning the P60 billion is deceptive. It is heavily outweighed by PhilHealth’s zero budget in 2025 and the pittance of PhilHealth funds in the 2026 National Expenditure Program.
Still and all, the return of the P60 billion to PhilHealth is a significant victory for the people, for those who fought to protect the integrity of PhilHealth funds, which belong to its members and must only be used for their main purpose: life-saving healthcare services.
We must continue demanding full accountability. The PhilHealth fund transfer was not just done by Congress — those in the Executive responsible for the reprehensible diversion of people’s healthcare funds must also be held accountable for their actions.
We ask the government to own up to its mistakes, and to apply the consequences of its irresponsible, nay, illegal, acts. Finally, we hope that the Supreme Court releases its decision on GR 274778 at the soonest possible time and that it rules the fund transfer unconstitutional to avoid its reoccurrence.
Filomeno S. Sta. Ana III coordinates the Action for Economic Reforms. Pia Rodrigo is strategic communications officer at Action for Economic Reforms.
