SC orders return of P60 B 'excess funds' to PhilHealth

By a unanimous vote, the Supreme Court has ordered the return of P60 billion impounded by the government from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), the SC announced yesterday.

- By ELIZABETH MARCELO

The high tribunal also made permanent the temporary restraining order (TRO) it earlier issued against the transfer of the remaining P29.9 billion in supposedly unused PhilHealth funds to the national treasury.

The 136-page SC decision was promulgated on Dec. 3, but was released to the media only yesterday.

It found unconstitutional and voided a “special provision” in the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA), inserted during the bicameral conference, along with Department of Finance Circular No. 003-2024, which ordered the supposedly “excess reserve funds” of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) including PhilHealth to be turned over to the national treasury.

The impounded GOCC funds were used to finance the unprogrammed appropriations, seen as the new pork barrel, in the 2024 GAA.

Congress and the executive were ordered by the SC to include the P60 billion to be returned to PhilHealth in the 2026 GAA.

DOF Circular No. 003-2024 directed the transfer of P89.9 billion in balance or excess reserve funds of PhilHealth to the national treasury.

In 2024, PhilHealth transferred in three tranches a total of P60 billion to the national treasury, until the SC, later that year, issued a TRO against the transfer of the remaining P29.9 billion.

In its decision, the High Tribunal said both the Special Provision 1(d) of the 2024 GAA and the DOF Circular No. 003-2024 must be stricken down as void, for being issued and implemented "with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction."

More importantly, the SC said the assailed provision repeals Section 11 of Republic Act 11223 or the Universal Health Care Act (UHCA) which requires PhilHealth to maintain reserve funds up to a ceiling equivalent to two years of projected program expenses.