Oral arguments on PhilHealth fund transfer set

The Supreme Court (SC) has scheduled oral arguments on petitions questioning the constitutionality of insertions in the unprogrammed appropriations of the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA) amounting to hundreds of billions of pesos.

SC spokesperson Camille Sue Mae Ting said the court will hear on 14 January next year the two consolidated petitions filed by Senator Aquilino Pimentel III and Bayan Muna chairman Neri Colmenares, among others.

The respondents in the Bayan Muna petition — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, the Senate of the Philippines, and the House of Representatives — have been ordered by the SC to comment on the petition within a non-extendable period of 10 days.

Pimentel, the Philippine Medical Association (PMA), and several others are seeking to declare unconstitutional Department of Finance Circular No. 003-204 and Section 1(d) of XLIII of the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA).

The DoF circular directs the transfer of unused subsidies of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), specifically PhilHealth amounting to P89.9 billion, to the national treasury to bolster the government’s unprogrammed appropriations.

The circular was issued in line with Section 1(d) of XLIII of the 2024 GAA, which the petitioners argue is an “inserted” provision on unprogrammed appropriations.

The petitioners are also seeking a temporary restraining order (TRO) and/or a writ of preliminary injunction to prevent the transfer of funds from PhilHealth to the National Treasury and to preserve the status of the petitioners prior to the transfer of P20 billion from PhilHealth to the national treasury in May 2024.

Ting said the Court may rule on the plea for the TRO before the oral arguments take place.

Bayan Muna’s petition seeks to nullify the P449.5-billion budget increase in the 2024 unprogrammed appropriations for violating Article VI, Section 22 of the Constitution, which requires that all laws go through the required legal proceedings unless “there is a public emergency and calamity.”

The group also asked the Court to declare void the Certification of Urgency for House Bill 8980, the General Appropriations Bill, in the absence of any calamity or emergency under Article VI, Section 26(2) of the Constitution.

Additionally, they are seeking a declaration that the Presidential Certification, the P449.5 billion inserted in the unprogrammed appropriations under the 2024 GAA, and Section 1(d) of XLIII of the Unprogrammed Appropriations in the 2024 GAA are void.