The PhilHealth fiasco

In a system of checks and balance, the Supreme Court has asserted its power to call out both the executive and the legislative branches for violating the Constitution by irregularly taking out the PhilHealth fund and transferring it to the national treasury. The decision was unanimous and the timing couldn’t have been more opportune as both house of Congress are about to go on a bicam conference to reconcile the House and Senate version of the 2026 national budget.

The Supreme Court, en banc unanimously ordered the executive department to return to PhilHealth ?60 billion of its funds. This fund comes from the contributions of employees and employers are required by law to remit every month to that state fund for the health services of the citizens. The government should have exercised utmost caution and prudence, if not delicadeza prior to taking out of such huge sum of money.

The blame falls on the former Finance secretary, now the executive secretary, for issuing that circular ordering the unauthorized taking away of that fund. If this fiasco happened in Japan, that former Finance secretary would have readily resigned and asked for forgiveness. And if there’s such thing as command responsibility even the president himself should accept full responsibility for that faux pas. No one in his right mind would believe that order didn’t have the green light of the chief executive.

It was the Finance secretary, let’s just call him Raffy Recto, who issued DOF Circular 003-2024 directing the transfer to the National Treasury of no less than ?89.8 billion supposedly representing the PhilHealth excess funds. First of all, did he define what constitutes "excess"? How can we say that PhilHealth ever had an excess fund when the quality of healthcare in the whole country has deteriorated both under the Duterte and the Marcos administrations? Government hospitals have inadequate equipment and supplies and PhilHealth members have to pay over and above PhilHealth benefits.

In the consolidated cases filed respectively by former senator Koko Pimentel, Akbayan led by former representative Neri Colmenares, and the Sambayan coalition, the Supreme Court not only ordered the return of the ?60 billion already transferred to the National Treasury but also issued a restraining order against the remittance of the balance of ?29.8 billion. The SC also struck down that provision of the 2024 GAA for being a rider, or one that is not germane to the title of the act. The Supreme Court also nullified the implicit amendment or repeal of both the Universal Health Care Law and the Sin Taxes Law, without explicitly declaring so. In other words, it was a surreptitious abrogation of very essential provisions of the said two laws.

Secretary Recto should have been the last person to do such an incongruous act having been both a senator and a congressman himself. He cannot feign ignorance of the legal nuances and the far-reaching implications and consequences of the irregular siphoning of the PhilHealth funds. It is fortunate that we have a Supreme Court that stands its ground even if both the executive and the legislative departments have more muscle and influence. Democracy is vibrant when the principle of checks and balances is used to prevent the collusion between the executive and the legislative in what can be considered a grand betrayal of public trust.

I am proud of my former fellow Law professor in the UST Faculty of Law, Justice Amy Lazaro-Javier who penned the decision. She was also the one among the 15 justices of the Supreme Court who asked the most jugular questions to both the petitioners and the Office of the Solicitor General during the oral arguments. The solgen, and his deputies and assistants, with its battery of lawyers defending both the Palace and the two houses of Congress were bombarded by Justice Amy with a barrage of very difficult questions of law and questions of facts. Justice Amy was my son's Civil Law professor and she is known to be very strict in class recitations.

What matters most is that we have a judiciary that doesn’t bow to the importuning of the Palace or cannot be cajoled by the surreptitious insertions of Congress. We have brilliant magistrates with impeccable legal acumen and unquestioned integrity. The PhilHealth fund is for the people, and never intended to fund budgetary insertions for flood control and other shenanigans. Enough is enough. The people are hungry and angry. The nation cannot tolerate another travesty.