Finance Secretary Ralph Recto on Thursday said that the P60 billion excess funds returned by the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to the national treasury were used for health-related projects.
PhilHealth was ordered to return P89.9 billion excess funds to the national treasury.
Last year, it already remitted P60 billion before the Supreme Court (SC) issued a temporary restraining order to halt the transfer of the remaining P29.9 billion.
During the resumption of the oral arguments on the PhilHealth funds, Recto said the P60 billion was redirected to the following:
- P27.45 billion to pay the allowances of COVID-19 frontliners
- P10 billion to the Social Programs for Health to provide medical assistance to poor Filipinos
- P3.37 billion for the establishment of three DOH facilities
- P4.1 billion to strengthen existing DOH facilities
- P1.6 billion to the Health Facilities Enhancement Program
- P13.00 billion to fund the government counterpart financing for foreign-assisted infrastructure and social determinants for healths projects.
“Your Honors, the P60 billion that was returned didn’t vanish—it paid frontliners, built hospitals, and gave the poor access to medicine. Every centavo remitted was converted into service. That is fiscal justice,” Recto said.
Meanwhile, Recto stressed that the P89.9 billion that PhilHealth was ordered to return were government subsidies that remained unused and not from member contributions.
“It bears stressing that not a single centavo meant for the members’ coverage was touched. Not a centavo of benefits was compromised,” Recto said.
“PhilHealth’s daily operations and benefit packages remain intact. They will not be disrupted but will even be improved.” he added.
The oral proceedings stemmed from the petitions asking the High Court to issue a TRO and/or a writ of preliminary injunction to prevent the transfer of PhilHealth funds.—AOL, GMA Integrated News
