MANILA, Philippines — It was a mandate from Congress that pushed the Department of Finance to order state health insurer PhilHealth to remit its unused budget of P89.9 billion back to the treasury.
This was Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said on Tuesday, defending the agency’s order to PhilHealth.
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“We are following Congress’ order. The Congress said in the 2024 budget that the DOF should be the one to issue a circular so that it could use funds that are possibly hibernating, sleeping or unused by other GOCCs. (a government-owned and controlled corporations),” Recto said in Filipino at a post-State of the Nation Address discussion.
According to Recto, at least two government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) had a combined P200 billion in unused funds, with approximately P89.9 billion belonging to PhilHealth and the remaining amount held by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC).
The sleeping funds, Recto said, could also benefit the country’s growth rate by less than 0.8%, which could translate to 6,000 jobs.
He added that the DOF also checked the measure’s legality with the Governance Commission for GOCCs, the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel and the Commission on Audit. All three agencies said that the memorandum was legal.
“More than P500 billion is sleeping in PhilHealth, even if we remove the P89.9 billion, there is still P500 billion—good for three years or more,” Recto said.
While there may still be more sleeping funds in other GOCCs, he said a bulk of it was in the PDIC and PhilHealth. Dormant funds from other GOCCs would likely be not that big, Recto said.
It will be unlikely that any more sleeping funds will be added to the government’s unprogrammed funds, the finance chief added.