Senate Committee on Finance chair Senator Grace Poe, during the Senate briefing on the proposed 2025 National Expenditure Program, said despite having available funds, the previous administration chose to take out loans.
The hearing tackled the controversy surrounding the transfer of PhilHealth’s unutilized subsidies to the National Treasury.
This was after the Philippine Medical Association (PMA), Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, and other petitioners filed a petition to the Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the transfer of funds from PhilHealth to the National Treasury.
Department of Finance Secretary Ralph Recto also addressed the issue, stating that PhilHealth was not responsible for the emergency allowances for frontline workers, as this responsibility was taken on by the national government.
As a result, the reserve funds were not used.
Recto said the government shouldered expenses and PhilHealth did not spend for a single vaccine.
“PhilHealth did not spend for a single frontline worker. The emergency funds of PhilHealth is precisely for something like a pandemic pero hindi nangyari. It was the past administration’s decision to borrow the money,” Recto said.
Poe also said: “We can now allocate the funds properly as they should have been from the start. These should have been contingency funds for health-related eventualities.”
She further explained that many health workers complained of not receiving their pay from the national government.
Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman reported that out of the P89.9 billion in unutilized subsidies from PhilHealth, P27.5 billion has been released to settle overdue claims for over five million COVID-19 health workers.
