DOF: Fund return only covers PhilHealth, not PDIC

MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court’s order to restore “excess funds” impounded by the national government refers only to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), the Department of Finance (DOF) said.

“The dispositive portion of the Supreme Court (SC) decision only talks about PhilHealth,” Finance Secretary Frederick Go said, when asked about the timeline for the government’s return of the funds remitted by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) to the Treasury last year.

In December, the SC held that Special Provision 1(d) of the 2024 General Appropriations Act and DOF Circular 003-2024 must be stricken down as void, for being issued and implemented “with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.”

“Section 11 also expressly provides that no portion of the reserve fund or its income may be transferred to the national government or any of its agencies,” the SC said.

Meanwhile, finance chief at the time of the transfer, Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, said the SC’s decision does not include the PDIC, noting that the PhilHealth funds have already been included in the 2026 national budget.

Political coalition 1Sambayan stated on Sunday that the P107.23 billion remitted to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) in January 2025 is not government property, but rather trust funds held for bank depositors, who are the rightful beneficiaries. The group has also urged the heads of the DOF and the BTr to promptly return the billion-peso PDIC fund that was remitted to the national treasury in 2025.

The ruling stripped the DOF circular of its legal force, effectively barring its use as authority to transfer funds from any government-owned or controlled corporation to the treasury. 1Sambayan said