An economist has recently called out the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) for not full utilizing it budget which resulted to the agency having excess idle funds.

Former Department of Agriculture (DA) Undersecretary Dr. Adriano Fermin stressed that the agency would not have idle funds if it used its financial resources to properly fulfill its mandate to provide health care for its members.

He added that the Department of Finance (DoF) should not be blamed  “for the blatant failure of PhilHealth to do its job properly.”

Fermin -- who served as DA undersecretary for Policy, Planning and Research in the past – said that medical groups and critics calling on the DoF to stop the utilization of PhilHealth’s excess funds should instead train their sights on the state insurer and demand that it maximized its financial resources.

“If only Philhealth spends the deposited money of around P500 billion on expanding coverage, increasing charges for medical care, and paying doctors and other personnel on time (the waiting is normally six months to a year or more), there will be no savings to speak of for DOF to shift to finance equally important expenditures,” said Fermin

He also reminded the public that the DoF was simply following the provisions of the law under the 2024 General Appropriations Act, which allowed the use of excess government-owned and corporation funds for the state’s programs.

He explained that it was Congress, during deliberation of budget for 2024, that “allowed transfer of funds from GOCC to finance govt projects."

“Whether congressional action is legal or not is something the SC will decide upon since there is now a pending case on this,” said Fermin.