Recto, other execs sued over transfer of funds
A former special adviser for the Department of Health (DOH) and the government’s COVID-19 task force on Monday charged Executive Secretary Ralph Recto with plunder, graft and malversation for ordering state-run companies to divert part of their reserve funds to the national treasury.
Aside from Recto, also charged by Dr. Tony Leachon before the Office of the Ombudsman were Health Secretary and Philippine Health Insurance (PhilHealth) Board Chair Teodoro Herbosa, acting Finance Secretary Frederick Go, former Budget Secretary Rolando Toledo, PhilHealth President and CEO Edwin Mercado, former PhilHealth CEO Emmanuel Ledesma Jr., Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) CEO Roberto Tan and several John and Jane Does representing other PDIC directors and officials.
Recto, for his part, called the plunder complaint against him “nothing but a nuisance and a harassment case.”
As head of the Department of Finance (DOF), Recto ordered the diversion to state coffers of P60 billion from PhilHealth and P107 billion from PDIC in line with a special provision in the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
It authorized the return of the fund balance or excess reserve funds of government-owned or -controlled corporations, particularly PhilHealth and PDIC, to fund unprogrammed appropriations under the GAA.
Leachon said that by ordering the transfer of PhilHealth funds, Recto “violated the Constitution and betrayed the people’s right to health.”
“The ₱60 billion could have saved lives, kept hospitals afloat, and brought dignity to families in despair,” Leachon said in a statement. “Instead, it was stolen from the sick and the poor.”
Duty to Filipinos
“Filing these charges is a duty to the Filipino people—to restore integrity, deter future abuses, and reclaim the promise of universal health care,” he added.
On the other hand, the PDIC fund diversion weakened safeguards meant to protect depositors and erode public trust in financial institutions, Leachon said.
The fund diversions, he stressed, were not “isolated missteps but a deliberate pattern of unconstitutional reallocation that endangered both health and financial security.”
Recto, for his part, said that five members of the Supreme Court had said in separate opinions that he could not be held criminally liable for the fund transfers as he “simply followed the law and implemented it in good faith.”
Harassment case
“Hence, this case is nothing but a harassment case by a person masquerading as a health reformer, a perennial applicant for health offices across several presidencies, but always rejected despite his aggressive self-promotion,” he added, referring to Leachon.
“This bitter man is again auditioning for a post in the next administration, using a platform of lies,” he said.
According to Recto, Leachon’s claim that he had “financially” benefited from the transferred PhilHealth funds was “an outright falsehood … and libelous.”
“An elementary understanding of public expenditure would lead one to conclude that I was not and never in a position to have been able to touch a single centavo of it,” he said.
Leachon’s complaint was the second plunder and technical malversation case to be filed against Recto and Ledesma before the Ombudsman in connection with the transfer of PhilHealth funds. The first was filed in December by members of the Save the Philippines Coalition, a group allied with former President Rodrigo Duterte.
In December, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the return of the P60-billion PhilHealth funds and permanently prohibited the transfer of the remaining P29.9-billion fund balance to the national treasury.
The high tribunal also declared as void the special provision in the 2024 GAA authorizing the fund transfers, as well as DOF Circular No. 003-2024, ruling that these were issued and implemented with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.
Earlier this month, PhilHealth confirmed that it had received the P60 billion, eight months after President Marcos ordered its return.
But the administration is not keen on returning the P107 billion remitted by the PDIC in 2024, with Recto and Go saying that, based on their interpretation, the Supreme Court order covered only the PhilHealth funds.
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