Recto says DOF to heed SC ruling on PhilHealth funds

Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto. (Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)

MANILA, Philippines—Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto said the Department of Finance (DOF) would respect the Supreme Court’s (SC) temporary restraining order against the transfer of idle and excess PhilHealth funds to the national treasuey.

“We respect the Supreme Court’s intervention. As a public servant myself, I recognize the right of every citizen to seek redress from the courts. Rest assured that the DOF will fully comply with the order of the Supreme Court,” Recto said in a statement released by the DOF on Tuesday.

“We give our full cooperation to the Supreme Court as we look forward to the opportunity to shed light on the issues presented during the oral arguments. With this honorable platform, we trust that all issues will be addressed once and for all,” Recto said.

Recto reiterated that the DOF’s move to sweep idle, unused, and excess funds of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) is a mandate under Republic Act No. 11975 or the GAA 2024, which was approved by Congress.

“We reiterate that before proceeding with the utilization of GOCC idle funds, our agency exercised due diligence and consulted extensively with the government’s legal experts,” said Recto.

“These include the Governance Commission for GOCCs, the Government Corporate Counsel, and the Commission on Audit. These efforts were undertaken to ensure full compliance with our laws,” Recto added.

The DOF received favorable legal opinions that PhilHealth’s unutilized government subsidies are not part of its reserve funds or income that is being restricted by the Universal Health Care Act from being used by the national government as a general fund.

The programs and projects funded by the unused government subsidies to PhilHealth include these:

• Health workers’ unpaid allowances during the pandemic
• Salary standardizarion VI for government employees released this year
• Reviaed Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) modernization program
• Philippine Multisectoral Nutrition Project
• Philippine Rural Development Project
• Mindanao Inclusive Agriculture Development Project
• Various big-ticket infrastructure projects under the Build Better More program.