Personnel attend to queries at the counters of the Philhealth office on Mother Ignacia Street in Quezon City taken on September 26, 2023. INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
MANILA, Philippines — Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Kho Jr. on Tuesday said it may be high time to “overhaul” the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) amid its alleged failure to comply with the law involving the use of its budget.
Kho made the pronouncement during the continuation of the oral arguments on the controversial transfer of the P89.9-billion PhilHealth excess reserve funds to the national treasury.
READ: SC justice: PhilHealth funds not for other uses
“Probably it’s time to overhaul PhilHealth and change the board for not complying with what the law requires,” Kho told Department of Health (DOH) spokesperson Albert Domingo.
“Hindi kasalanan ng tao ‘yan for not availing all of these benefits. Apparently, from your own words, kasalanan ‘yan ng administration, this administration, last administration, or the previous administration, at kasalanan ‘yan ng PhilHealth board,” he added.
(It’s not the people’s fault for not availing of all these benefits. Apparently, from your own words, that is the fault of the administration, this administration, the last administration, or the previous administration, and this is the fault of the PhilHealth board.)
This came after Kho questioned how PhilHealth came up with its budget request in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) which is supposed to be sourced from tax collections, including those from sin taxes and gaming revenues, as required by law.
Under Section 37 of the Universal Health Care Act, PhilHealth funds must be sourced from total incremental sin tax collections; 50 percent of the national government share from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation’s income; 40 percent of charity fund, net of documentary stamp tax payments, and mandatory contributions of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office; premium contributions of members; the annual appropriations of the DOH included in the GAA; and the national government subsidy to PhilHealth included in the GAA.
Domingo also admitted that the DOH uses a different formula than what the law prescribes.
“It does not refer to the computation on the sin tax allocation,” Domingo said, explaining that PhilHealth instead bases its budget request on the number of indirect members multiplied by the corporation’s premium rate.
With this, Kho questioned PhilHealth if it was disregarding its legal funding sources—to which Domingo responded that PhilHealth’s budgeting principles simply prioritized needs-based allocation rather than relying solely on projected government revenues.
Kho argued that PhilHealth’s self-imposed funding limits prevented it from fully addressing Filipinos’ healthcare needs.
“The problem is PhilHealth limits the funding so that you don’t address the health needs of the Filipino people. If you increase the budget by 200 percent, I don’t think the Filipinos would not avail of that. You define your own limits,” he pointed out.
“The Congress allocates budgets, provides collections of taxes to answer for the subsidy of Philhealth for indirect contributors. Now, when you request money for subsidy, does that mean you will disregard that? You will make your own formula, because you have limited understanding, need of our people for health?” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.
Domingo clarified that the Marcos administration already agrees with Kho’s observation, tagging it as a “strong signal” for PhilHealth to increase the benefits it provides.
Kho noted that such an admission also signifies that the government must recognize the need to return the P60 billion it remitted to the National Treasury.
“As long as the government recognizes now, it is now incumbent on the part of the government to return the 60 billion that was transmitted already because it is recognized now,” he said.
He said PhilHealth can request President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to return the money.
“Return that to PhilHealth to expand its benefits, hire more people to answer for the needs of the health of our people,” he added.