OSG wants petition to stop transfer of PhilHealth funds dismissed

Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra —Photo from the House of Representatives FB page

MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to dismiss the petition seeking to stop the remittance of P89.9 billion fund from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) back to the national treasury.

In a consolidated comment filed on September 4 but released to the media on Sunday, Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra argued that the transfer of unused fund was legal, adding that the petition filed by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III et al. was flawed due to several procedural and substantive issues.”

READ: SC asked to stop transfer of P90-B PhilHealth funds

Guevarra likewise pointed out that the Department of Finance Circular No. 003-2024 and Section 1(d), Chapter XLIII of the 2024 General Appropriation Act (GAA) were constitutional and did not violate the people’s right to health.

He added that the 2024 GAA also disputed that PhilHealth’s idle funds “was supposedly the cause of the continued out-of-pocket expenditures of the population or their refrain from availment of health services.”

“The questioned remittance of up to P89.9 billion, when viewed from a broader perspective, will not necessarily hamper, much less disable, the implementation of PhilHealth’s mandate,” Guevarra said.

Last month, Pimentel, along with a former finance undersecretary, doctors, and public health advocates, filed a petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the DOF circular, which ordered the fund transfer.

Based on reports, the circular was issued in February this year in compliance with the 2024 budget law directing the finance department to issue guidelines to implement the collection of unprogrammed appropriations sourced from the fund balances of government-owned and -controlled corporations.