Budget watchers flag swelling PhilHealth fund gap
Budget advocates on Wednesday assailed the government’s continuing funding shortfall for the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), now amounting to P356.6 billion.
While PhilHealth still lacked the funding support required by law, lawmakers kept pouring billions of pesos into a health assistance program that is just another form of pork barrel, they said.
In an Inquirer interview, former Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad and Sofia Rodrigo of the Action for Economic Reforms noted that the P113 billion allocated for PhilHealth for 2026 was still far below what it needed.
At least five laws—the Sin Tax Reform Act, the Universal Health Care Act, the tobacco excise tax law, and the charters of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.—set the funding requirements for PhilHealth’s National Health Insurance Program (NHIP).
The program is intended to subsidize premiums for indirect members, or persons whose premium contributions are shouldered by the government, such as indigents and senior citizens.
But the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has not allocated 100 percent of PhilHealth’s approved appropriations from 2023-2025 to be able to cover its yearly funding requirements to cover indigent premiums, leading to a total deficit of P356.6 billion in the past three years alone.
Flash point of corruption
In 2023, for example, the DBM’s actual cash allocated (ACA) for PhilHealth was only P50.7 billion even though the required premium for indirect members by law was P136.6 billion. In 2024, the DBM’s ACA dropped to P9.5 billion despite the requirement of P129 billion.
Abad said this deficit exacerbated the effects of last year’s zero government subsidy for the NHIP, which affected indigent premiums and the programmed improvements to PhilHealth’s case rates.
The complete defunding of state subsidies for PhilHealth last year under the watch of then House appropriations committee chair, Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co, led to the discovery of other questionable changes that happened in the bicameral conference committee deliberations on the 2025 General Appropriations Act.
The total shortfall, Rodrigo said, will swell to P571.4 billion for 2026 if factoring in the required premium for indirect members for next year, as well as P60 billion in funds diverted in 2024 that is yet to be returned.
Abad and Rodrigo also noted how congressional funding for the Department of Health’s Medical Assistance to Indigent and Financially Incapable Patients (MAIFIP) had steadily grown since 2019, as state subsidy for PhilHealth gradually went down.
In 2019, funding for PhilHealth stood at P67 billion while MAIFIP got P9 billion. By 2024, the second full year of the Marcos administration, MAIFIP got P58 billion while PhilHealth got only P40 billion.
In 2025, MAIFIP was given P41 billion while PhilHealth had zero.
Next year, MAIFIP is expected to get a reduced budget of P24.2 billion while PhilHealth will get P113 billion. The latter sum is composed of P53 billion from the National Expenditure Program and the promised return of the P60 billion diverted in 2024.
Pork in disguise
Abad and Rodrigo called for the total defunding of MAIFIP, calling it a clear violation of the 2013 Supreme Court ruling on pork barrel funds.
MAIFIP beneficiaries, they noted, can avail themselves of medical assistance by submitting certain requirements to a lawmaker, who would then issue “guarantee letters” to have a portion of a patient’s hospital bills covered.
Subjecting the entire hospitalization process to political discretion defeats the purpose of universal health care, Abad said.
“So what happens now is that the provision of social services is no longer a matter of right but a matter of utang na loob (debt of gratitude),” Abad said. “So now you have to test the Supreme Court decision and challenge this.”
