Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa should speak up on the controversial transfer of the P89.9 billion unused funds of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to the national treasury in four tranches until November.
Dr. Anthony Leachon, an independent health reform advocate, criticized Herbosa for keeping quiet on the issue, citing a lack of transparency on the process that led to the decision to return the funds.
In the Aug. 14 episode of VERA Files’ Tres from Tress podcast, Leachon, former independent director, representative of the monetary Board to the PhilHealth, noted Herbosa has never spoken about the fund transfer.
“Tumutol ba siya [Herbosa]? Kasi wala siyang press statement na tumutol siya na i-give away ‘yung 90 billion [pesos]. (Did he object? Because he doesn’t have a press statement objecting to give away the P90 billion),” Leachon said.
He lamented the absence of a PhilHealth board resolution to cover the discussion in a Cabinet meeting where the decision was supposedly arrived at, in particular if Herbosa opposed the reversion of excess funds and its use for infrastructure and job generation projects.
Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, who declared the transfer as legal, came out with a press statement that said the Office of the General Corporate Counsel (OGCC) was consulted on the legality of the transfer.
Herbosa, a Health undersecretary under the administration of Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III, said in July that a portion of the excess funds was partially used to pay for the health emergency allowance of healthcare workers.
But Leachon pushed back, saying, “Wala sa charter ng PhilHealth ang (There is nothing in the PhilHealth’s charter for) health emergency allowance during the COVID pandemic. ‘Yan ay separate line item na kukunin mo sa Kongreso at hindi mo pwedeng kunin sa PhilHealth kasi hindi mandato ng PhilHealth magbayad diyan (That is a separate line item that you have to get from Congress and you cannot get it from PhilHealth because that is not part of its mandate).”
Recto defended the legality of the transfer of PhilHealth funds before a Senate panel on July 30, then said on Aug. 12 that the excess funds would be used to cover long overdue infrastructure projects under the unprogrammed appropriations in the 2024 national budget.
“I’d like to reassure our medical community, iyong P89.9 billion, pinramis ni Secretary Recto, ‘health for health’, sabi niya. Words niya iyon, ‘health money for health’,” Herbosa told reporters in a post-SONA discussion on July 23.
But Leachon was insistent. “Hindi dapat kunin ‘yan [infrastructure funds] sa PhilHealth. Ang mandato ng PhilHealth, financing lang for the hospitalization natin [members].”
(They should not get it from PhilHealth. The only mandate of PhilHealth [is] financing for our hospitalization.)
Leachon, a popular social media influencer on health issues, further explained that even if the funds were to be used for health-related infrastructure, it still does not justify the transfer of funds because financing such projects is still outside the mandate of PhilHealth.
In May, P20 billion of the PhilHealth excess fund was already remitted and another P10 billion is scheduled for transfer before the end of August. The third and fourth tranches (P30 billion and P29.9 billion) are due to be remitted in October and November, respectively.
