Broad-based citizens’ group Social Watch Philippines (SWP) and its budget advocacy coalition called the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI) have asked the Senate to scrutinize PhilHealth’s allocation in the 2025 national budget.
This comes after the Supreme Court recently issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the transfer of the remaining PhilHealth funds to the national treasury amounting to P29.9 billion scheduled in November 2024.
“We urge the Senate, during its upcoming plenary deliberations on the 2025 budget, to intensely scrutinize the 2025 budget allocation for PhilHealth, question the budget cuts, and prevent another raid in the PhilHealth fund that primarily impacts the most vulnerable Filipinos,” said SWP co-convenor Maria Victoria Raquiza.
In a media release, SWP and ABI said Senate should question the raid of PhilHealth funds, and the recent trend of reducing the annual budget allocation for the PhilHealth premium contributions of the indirect contributors.
They noted that the law provides that revenues from the taxes on tobacco and sugar-sweetened beverage products explicitly earmarked for PhilHealth fund the premium contributions of indirect contributors.
Indirect PhilHealth contributors are those identified as indigents by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), senior citizens, persons with disabilities, Sangguniang Kabataan Officials, Filipinos aged 21 years old and above without capacity to pay premiums.
SWP and ABI pointed out that the 2024 GAA allocated only P62 billion out of the P102 billion proposal of PhilHealth, or a budget reduction of P40 billion.
Furthermore, they said, the 2025 proposed national budget, the National Expenditure Program (NEP), shows that PhilHealth only gets an allocation of P74.4 billion, or below the PhilHealth allocation for the year 2022 and 2023, which were at P80 billion and P100.2 billion, respectively.
The group also welcomed the Supreme Court’s action on the fund transfer “and for recognizing the irreparable damage of this raid of PhiHealth funds on the Filipino people’s rights.”
On the petitions filed against the transfer of funds, SWP and ABI hope that the Supreme Court will arrive at a decision in favor of the Filipino people’s interest that will lead to the return of the P60 billion funds already remitted to the National Treasury, and stop further raids of the PhilHealth funds.
The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for the petitions filed by Senator Koko Pimentel, Bayan Muna, and others on January 14, 2025.
These petitions challenge the issuance of the Department of Finance (DOF) Circular 003-2024, implementing the additional provisions inserted under the Special Provision of the 2024 General Appropriation Act (GAA) that allowed the government to utilize the excess funds of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCC) for the Unprogrammed Appropriations (UA).
In August 2024, before the second tranche of the fund transfer, SWP led a signature campaign which garnered around 3,000 signatures of individuals and organizations calling for President Marcos to immediately order the return of the portion of PhilHealth’s P89.9-billion funds that was already remitted to the Bureau of Treasury and prevent further transfer of the remaining funds.