PhilHealth membership in Western Visayas down

ILOILO CITY — The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) has observed a decrease in active membership registrations in Western Visayas as of March 2025, but officials clarified that it is not linked to the agency's budget situation.

Junie Sabusap, chief of PhilHealth-6's Field Operations Division, attributed the decline to the ongoing renewal process for households listed under the Department of Social Welfare and Development's (DSWD) Listahanan 3 database.

"One of the reasons why there is seemingly a decrease in member registration as of this March is because the renewal is ongoing in what we call the Listahanan 3," he said in a press conference on Friday.

The Listahanan 3 is the third cycle of DSWD's National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction, which identifies poor households eligible for various government assistance programs.

In October 2023, DSWD and PhilHealth signed a data-sharing agreement enabling the health insurance agency to use the Listahanan 3 database to prioritize coverage for poor families under the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP), in line with the Universal Health Care Act.

Membership under the NHIP's sponsored program is valid for one year and must be renewed annually to maintain access to PhilHealth benefits.

Sabusap explained that PhilHealth is manually validating the Listahanan 3 records to avoid data discrepancies.

"We don't immediately register it totally, because we're still validating the discrepancy [...] If we load it automatically to our database without validation, it can create more discrepancies that is why we have this manual validation," he explained.

He added that the manual validation process is set to conclude by June 30, after which membership figures are expected to rise and match last year's numbers.

Despite PhilHealth receiving no allocation from the 2025 national budget — a move defended by President Marcos and finance officials citing the agency's P600 billion in reserve funds — Sabusap assured that the budget decision has not impacted membership registration.

"The zero subsidy has no effect. It's only because registration is still ongoing," he stressed.

As of the first quarter of 2025, PhilHealth-6 reported that 80 percent — or 6.56 million out of 8.2 million registered members — are actively contributing.

Iloilo province and city posted the highest active membership rate at 82.75%, followed by Negros Occidental at 81.21% and Guimaras at 79.78%. Capiz had the lowest rate at 72.63%.