PhilHealth ‘savings’

First they wanted to classify the contributions of public and private pensioners as surplus assets that could finance a sovereign wealth fund called the Maharlika.

Not surprisingly, the pushback was so strong it forced Marcos 2.0 to retreat. To this day, only the highly paid executives of the Maharlika Investment Fund are benefiting from its creation. The MIF is still scrounging around for funds to invest.

The Maharlika did manage to get 100 percent of the total declared dividends of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for the first two years of the MIF. Initially speaking out in 2022 about the risks this posed to the BSP’s financial stability and independence cost then central bank chief Felipe Medalla an appointment to a full six-year term.

Perhaps buoyed by the success of the expropriation of the BSP reserves for the MIF, lawmakers looked around for other cash cows that might be exploited, this time to finance the latest incarnation of their pork barrel, the unprogrammed appropriations in the national budget.

The budget process is complicated. In our country, the crafting of the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA) is akin to voodoo for the majority of people.

President Marcos’ super majority in Congress may believe – perhaps correctly – that most of us Filipinos are too stupid to understand complex budgeting. But most of us also know enough to understand when the government wants to mess with our pension funds, and now the contributions automatically deducted from our monthly pay for health insurance.

Also, there are finance wizzes who can deconstruct the convoluted budgeting process, and explain in layman’s terms how the public can get screwed by government fund juggling.

The most laughable (and for others, enraging) argument in the latest controversy, for us math-challenged Pinoys, is that the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) has P89.9 billion in excess or unused funds that can be impounded for the national coffers.

This is in compliance with a circular issued by the Department of Finance to all government-owned and controlled corporations, to do the same with their unused funds. The DOF circular, in turn, is based on a provision in the 2024 GAA, inserted by lawmakers during the bicameral conference committee, that allows the fund realignment.

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Administration officials have explained that it would be a shame to leave unused funds lying idle. They said the money is from government subsidies to PhilHealth, so public contributions are not being touched.

President Marcos, whose survey ratings are consistently slipping, should understand how this story is coming off in a country suffering from a serious inadequacy in public health care.

Even for the middle class with private health insurance, quality medical care is a luxury. A major surgery or treatment for chronic illness can deplete one’s life savings.

I know people who have eschewed cancer treatment, kidney dialysis or open-heart surgery to preserve their savings for their loved ones. These are agonizing choices, for both the patient and the family.

Even if the surgical procedure is state-subsidized, payment for nearly all types of drugs is out of pocket – and medicine is almost always expensive. I know a blue-collar worker who has become buried in debt just to treat a recurrent yeast infection.

The worker makes over P10,000 a month, so she is among those whose PhilHealth premiums went up to five percent of her income (from the previous four) beginning this year.

Yet her out-patient treatment is not even covered by PhilHealth. And she was flabbergasted to be told that PhilHealth has P89.9 billion in excess money that can be turned over to the general fund.

BBM should realize how this issue is an emotional one for the millions for whom health care is a luxury.

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If he has become tone-deaf, a group is preparing a petition to be filed with the Supreme Court, challenging the DOF circular and its basis – that last-minute insertion in the 2024 GAA during the bicameral conference.

Among the petitioners is Cielo Magno, who resigned last year as finance undersecretary after criticizing BBM’s imposition of a price cap on rice amid surging retail prices of the staple. Malacañang, which dropped the price cap like a hot potato, said her appointment was not renewed.

“From our perspective, it’s illegal because what they’re doing with this provision essentially is to amend all the charters, all these laws that created the GOCCs,” Magno told “Storycon” on One News last Wednesday.

Magno, who has returned to teaching at the University of the Philippines School of Economics, also noted that the P89.9 billion shows PhilHealth inefficiency and cannot be classified as savings. She describes the bicameral insertion in the GAA as a rider that cannot effectively serve as a sweeping amendment of all GOCC charters.

Under the law, PhilHealth reserve funds can be used only for two purposes: to expand its services or to reduce the premiums.

Magno did not rule out the possibility of graft indictments arising from this issue.

It’s not the first time that the national government has impounded “savings” from agencies.

During the Arroyo administration, critics had slammed the repeated reenactment of the annual GAA. All remaining funds from the previous year would then be classified as savings and impounded by the national government, for realignment to unprogrammed projects or programs.

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Today, unprogrammed appropriations have become the new form of the congressional pork barrel, after it was struck down by the Supreme Court. The pork barrel system is a zombie that refuses to die.

The executive and legislative branches plus local governments want discretionary funds that they can use at will, ostensibly for emergency situations, but more often for their pet projects and programs.

Discretionary funds include confidential and intelligence funds. There’s one thing we can thank Vice President Sara Duterte for, although her role was unwitting – the exposure of the abuse of CIFs.

Even her case, however, has failed to produce legislation that will prevent the abuse of CIFs, especially by local government units. In an election year, this piece of legislation is unlikely to be passed. All politicians are looking for creative ways of using enormous amounts of people’s money for personal or partisan purposes.

This is what the impounding of PhilHealth funds smacks of for many people. Except for the .001 percent of the population who can afford to get the best medical treatment in the US, Europe or Singapore, this latest controversy involving PhilHealth is deeply distressing to Filipinos.

No matter how the administration spins it, the story is looking downright obscene.

H