Recto wants over half of sin tax revenues allocated for PhilHealth

Sen. Ralph Recto. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Senator Ralph Recto on Tuesday proposed that more than half of the P40 billion additional revenue that is expected to be collected from increased “sin” taxes should be released directly to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., or PhilHealth).

Recto proposed during deliberations that P23 billion be “directly released annually to PhilHealth to meet and sustain the government’s goal of providing universal health coverage and benefit an additional 10.4 million families.”

Aside from the PhilHealth allocation, hospitals in the district and regional levels should also benefit from the revenues so that the additional PhilHealth beneficiaries will be adequately served by the hospitals, he added.

Recto said that P10 million should be allocated every year “to each of the 618 district hospitals operated by local government units for repair and upgrading of facilities and services.”

A separate P100 million will be allocated annually “to each of the 16 regional hospitals and 22 medical centers for the same operational and physical upgrading.”

Recto also wants the Department of Health to conduct “a nationwide information campaign on the ill-effects of smoking and drinking” using a P100 million yearly allocation.

To counter an expected displacement of workers and farmers in the tobacco and alcohol industry, Recto said he wants P750-million annual allocation for an unemployment package.

He said that he wants a maximum of P150,000 “unemployment insurance” for each displaced worker, which could be availed of within a year.

Recto also wants P250 million allocated for the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) for the retraining of the displaced farmers and workers. Each worker would be entitled to P50,000 worth of training in the Tesda, he said.

“The people, at the outset, should know where the money that would be taken from them would be used,” Recto said. “If these amendments are accepted on the floor, this would mean that all the proposed earmarkings or allocations will be strictly funded yearly regardless of whether the P40 billion revenue target is realized,” he added.

Senator Franklin Drilon, the principal sponsor of the bill, accepted all of Recto’s proposed amendments.