MANILA, Philippines — How would you rate the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation’s (PhilHealth) performance?
This was the question raised by Sen. Minority Leader Koko Pimentel III during the Senate’s Thursday deliberations on the proposed 2025 funding of the Governance Commission for Government-owned and controlled corporations (GCG).
At the end of Pimentel’s prodding was Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada speaking on behalf of the GCG as the agency’s budget sponsor.
According to Estrada, under GCG’s scorecard system, PhilHealth only got a passing grade once from 2016 to 2022. He provided the following data:
- 2016 – 93.97 percent
- 2017 – 47.82 percent
- 2018 – 78.17 percent
- 2019 – 62.25 percent
- 2020 – 13.75 percent
- 2021 – 28.07 percent
- 2022 – 71.87 percent
- 2023 – undergoing evaluation
Pimentel, for his part, asked what a grade of less than 75 percent means.
Estrada explained that the required score for government-owned and controlled corporations for them to be eligible for performance bonuses is 90 percent above.
“Pag below 90 percent may mararamdaman na na parang sanction o punishment yung government corporation. Ano ang mawawala?” asked Pimentel.
(If below 90 percent, they will be sanctioned or punished. What will be lost?)
Senate President Francis Escudero, who was also present during the hearing, interjected, saying it was the performance-based bonus that would be lost.
“Hindi sila maka-declare. They cannot give themselves bonus and their employees performance-based bonus kasi nagfail sila sa scoring system ng GCG na sumusunod naman sa international best practices,” said Pimentel.
(They would not be able to declare. They cannot give themselves bonuses and their employees performance-based bonuses because they failed in the scoring system of the GCG, which only adheres to international best practices.)
“Yan ang purpose ng GCG kasi para kayo ang taga gising, taga latigo sa mga GOCCs to perform better,” he added.
(That’s the purpose of GCG. You help GOCCs perform better.)