Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra (File photo)
MANILA – The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to dismiss the petition questioning the return of unused government subsidy of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) back to the national treasury.
The OSG said the transfer of unused money was legal and that the petition filed by Senator Aquilino Pimentel III was flawed due to several procedural and substantive issues.
In the comment filed by Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra with the SC, he said circulars issued by the Department of Finance (DOF) were constitutional as these did not violate the people’s right to health.
Guevarra said Section 1(d), Chapter XLIII of the 2024 General Appropriation Act (GAA), one of the DOF circulars, did not violate the right to health as guaranteed under the Constitution.
He disputed the assertion of petitioners that the transfer of 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 PHP89.9 billion, when viewed from a broader perspective, will not necessarily hamper, much less disable, the implementation of PhilHealth’s mandate,” Guevarra said as quoted in a news release on Sunday.
“Assuming that there are challenges, roadblocks, and shortcomings in achieving the purposes of the UHCA [Universal Health Care Act], the same are matters only of its implementation, and are not tantamount to a violation of the right to health, as erroneously espoused by petitioners,” he added.
Guevarra said there was no violation of the people’s right to health, noting that the transfer of funds has not shown to have violated the mandates of the UHCA.
He said the income of PhilHealth was more than enough to cover the payment of benefit claims and operating expenses.
The idle PhilHealth funds, he said, were “in excess of the funds needed for its maintenance and operations, including the payment for any outstanding claims for FY 2023.”
“It likewise bears emphasizing that aside from its annual net income averaging more than PHP100 billion in the past three years, PhilHealth has a reserve fund of PHP488,107,320,929.88 as of March 31, 2024, highlighting its strong fiscal position,” he added.
Guevarra also cited procedural issues, among them are the failure of the petition to satisfy the requirements for the exercise of judicial review, the failure of petitioners to exhaust legal remedies and the petition’s violation of the doctrine of the hierarchy of courts.
He said the SC should dismiss the petition outright “on the ground that the petitioners failed to comply with the requisites for the Honorable Court’s exercise of judicial review.”
One of the requirements, Guevarra said, is legal standing, or the right of a party to initiate a suit.
Guevarra said the petitioners failed to satisfy the requirements for legal standing as citizens because the “petitioners’ premise that the implementation of the assailed 2024 GAA provision and DOF Circular could lead to a breach of their right to health is highly speculative.”
The petition, he added, “failed to show that the people’s access to health services have been affected.”
“In fact, PhilHealth has even expanded the benefits of its members,” he added.
PhilHealth announced that it would be introduce a series of new and improved benefits, such as an increase in the number of generic drugs available for outpatient treatments, better benefits for those suffering from strokes and pneumonia, and a close to nearly 1,000-percent increase in the coverage limit for breast cancer treatment.
It will also include in its coverage chemotherapy for lung, liver, ovarian and prostate cancers.
PhilHealth President Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. said the state health insurer is eyeing to provide up to 50-percent increase in benefits before Christmas after a 30-percent hike almost across the board last February. (PR)
