Senators question PhilHealth funding

MANILA, Philippines — Senators are poised to question the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth)’s need for more funds in the 2025 national budget despite its surplus funds, when the Senate tackles the Department of Health (DOH) budget for next year.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said the main question for PhilHealth officials is about the surplus funds or fund balance, including the P89.9 billion “savings” transferred to the national treasury to finance other government projects.

“In 2024, we put P61 billion (in PhilHealth). They said that they did not spend it and the P89 billion would be returned to the national treasury. But in 2025, they will put in another P70 billion,” Gatchalian said yesterday in an interview with dzBB. “It is counterintuitive. It seems that what they are doing is not consistent. So check it carefully.”

He added: “If they have not spent the money (in 2024), why would we give (funding) again for 2025? We know they have problems implementing (programs) and spending money, and that is what we want (to clarify).”

Sen. Grace Poe, chairperson of the Senate committee on finance, also noted that despite having unutilized funds that were transferred to the National Treasury, the previous administration chose to take out loans.

“We had money, but we borrowed and owed money. Pretend I have a budget at home. I have P10,000 in the bank. Now, I have to pay my employees P3,000. So, instead of taking it from the bank even though I had money there, I borrowed,” Poe explained.

“So now that there is something else that has to be paid, I will now use the money that is stored in the bank there because that is where it should have gone in the first place,” she added.

Gatchalian noted that he would personally focus on the subsidies, which are given by the national government to expand the number of PhilHealth members but has not been done.

He said in some instances, government agencies request funds without considering their absorptive capacity or their capacity to spend, or if the money they were asking for is too much.

“So we should really take the details and carefully examine their request this coming 2025. But I agree that this should be carefully