DOF: No order from SC to return P60B to PhilHealth

The Department of Finance (DOF) on Wednesday stressed that the Supreme Court's temporary restraining order (TRO) did not state that the P60 billion excess funds of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) transferred to the national treasury should be returned to the state insurer.

Finance Secretary Ralph Recto made the remark, through Senate finance committee chairperson Grace Poe, during the first day of the Senate's plenary deliberations on the proposed national budget for 2025 after Senate Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros raised the calls for these funds to be returned to PhilHealth.

"Unang-una po, nasabi na rin po ng ating Secretary of Finance na siya ay tatalima sa desisyon ng Hudikatura… Ang TRO po ng Hudikatura ay...itigil po ang pag-remit ng pera, pero hindi binabanggit na ito ay kailangan ibalik...sa PhilHealth," Poe said.

(Firstly, the Secretary of Finance had already said that they will follow the decision of the Judiciary. The TRO of the Judiciary is for the halting of the transfer of the excess funds, but it did not mention that these should be returned to PhilHealth.)

In October, the SC issued a TRO on the further transfer of the P89.9-billion excess funds of PhilHealth to the national treasury.

PhilHealth earlier reported that P60 billion has been transferred to the national treasury with only P29.9 billion remaining with the agency.

According to Poe, almost P9 billion from PhilHealth's transferred funds have already been released from the national treasury.

Citing Recto and Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman's earlier statements, Hontiveros said that the transferred funds from PhilHealth were to be used for the Philippine government's counterpart funding for flood-control projects and railway projects undertaken together with Japan International Cooperation Agency, Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank.

The funds will be used particularly for the right of way acquisition and resettlement which are needed to proceed with the big-ticket infrastructure projects.

This prompted Hontiveros to call on the government to stop lodging flagship projects under the unprogrammed appropriations.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) defines unprogrammed appropriations as those which provide standby authority to incur additional agency obligations for priority programs or projects when revenue collection exceed targets, and when additional grants or foreign funds are generated while are appropriations with definite/identified funding as of the time the budget is prepared.

"Kailangang itigil na rin ang paglagay sa alanganing unprogrammed funds ng mga pondo para sa mga flagship projects ng gabinete at ng presidente," Hontiveros said.

(We should stop lodging these flagship projects of the Cabinet and the President under the unprogrammed funds.)

The first petition against the transfer was filed in August by Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III and the Philippine Medical Association, among others.

This was followed by other petitions from the 1SAMBAYAN Coalition, headed by retired SC Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, and Bayan Muna chairperson Neri Colmenares and other members on October 16.

The SC has set oral arguments on the petitions in January 2025. —RF, GMA Integrated News