Impeach VP Sara yourself, don't use PhilHealth money

We own PhilHealth. Employees have been contributing for 30 years since 1995. Total: 66.67 million contributors, dependents, retirees.

- JARIUS BONDOC

Indigents joined under the 2018 Universal Health Care Act. PhilHealth gets sin taxes on alcohol, tobacco, sweets. Total: 41.84 million.

Self-entitled senators, congressmen, Presidents, VPs and Cabinetmen treat PhilHealth as government money.

They divert our money to pork barrels and political ayuda – then punish us members for faults of PhilHealth appointees.

We lack basic health benefits: doctor's consultation, x-ray, blood works, urine and stool tests, mammogram, prostate ultrasound, eye-ear-nose-throat-dental checks.

Only if hospitalized do we receive P5,500, one percent of total bill, in return for our decades-long contributions.

Destitutes are worse off. To enjoy benefits they must queue up for Medical Assistance for Indigent Patients, indebting them to politicos.

Ledesma doesn't care. He's busy planning a P138-million banquet, with P2,500-giveaway umbrellas, on PhilHealth's 30th anniversary this year. He didn't care that 4,000 deceased members are still in the database.

MAIP political requests and billion-peso PhilHealth releases double each year, former finance undersecretary Cielo Magno exposed.

In January 2024, PhilHealth CEO Emmanuel Ledesma raised our contributions to P500-P5,000 a month "for added benefits." Finance Sec. Ralph Recto then snatched P90 billion from PhilHealth for roadworks.

Saying it was on President Bongbong Marcos' order, Ledesma gave in "like a good soldier." The Congress supermajority cheered.

The 96,000-strong Philippine Medical Association, 72 specialist societies, a million nurses, labor federations, businessmen and professionals, religious leaders, retired generals, former Cabinet members, academics and NGOs protested.