Public good still prevails

Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!

Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.

Visit Suniway.ph to learn

In a unanimous decision promulgated on December 3, the Supreme Court declared void the transfer of the P60 billion fund balance of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to the National Treasury. It also permanently prohibited the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Department of Finance and the Office of the Executive Secretary from implementing the transfer of the remaining P29.9 billion in the PhilHealth fund balance.

The decision stemmed from three consolidated petitions challenging as unconstitutional a provision in the 2024 GAA and DOF Circular 003-2024, which mandated the transfer of P89.9 billion from the PhilHealth fund balance to the National Treasury.

The 2024 GAA, contained in Republic Act 11975, authorized the return of the fund balance or excess reserve funds of government-owned or controlled corporations (GOCCs) to the treasury to fund unprogrammed appropriations under the GAA. It directed the DOF to issue guidelines for implementing this provision.

By virtue of this, the DOF issued Circular 003-2024 requiring GOCCs such as PhilHealth to remit their fund balance to the National Treasury. The PhilHealth board then approved the transfer of the subject funds and remitted a total of P60 billion, which came from government subsidy contributions or premiums for indigents or indirect contributors, which it received in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

On Sept.20, 2025, however, the President announced that the P60 billion fund balance of PhilHealth remitted to the National Treasury would be returned to PhilHealth. And that is even before the High Tribunal released its ruling.

The DOF has been at the center of public debate on the issue, but the facts remain unchanged: the DOF acted squarely within the law. The 2024 GAA expressly authorized the temporary use of idle funds to shore up the country’s fiscal position during a period marked by extraordinary resource strain. And because of this provision, the government was finally able to settle long-overdue health emergency allowance arrears for both health and non-health care workers.

The Supreme Court has spoken. The executive department acted in accordance with the congressional mandate under the 2024 GAA but said that it respects the SC’s decision on the matter. That shows maturity and an understanding that governance is not about pride, but about service. As Executive Secretary Ralph Recto and the DOF continue their painstaking work of fiscal stewardship, we know they will remain guided by the principle that public funds must serve the public good.

Institution gone wrong

The Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) was established through Republic Act 11032, also known as the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act, in 2018. It was empowered to implement and oversee a policy aimed at reducing bureaucracy, streamlining transactions with the government, eliminating intermediaries, promoting transparency within each agency in its dealings with the public, and making doing business in the Philippines easier.

ARTA had the power to monitor and evaluate compliance of all government agencies and offices, including local government units, GOCCs, and other government instrumentalities that transact with the public, to require that transactions with government be acted upon within the time frame provided under the law, and to file cases against non-compliant government officials and employees.

In the process, a lot of feathers were ruffled.

Last Nov. 24, Sen. Miguel Zubiri, one of the sponsors of the Ease of Doing Business bill, noted that through the years since the law was passed, the number of cases filed by ARTA has dwindled.

Zubiri revealed that former ARTA director general Jeremiah Belgica was charged with several cases because he was doing his job to the letter, which did not sit well with the Ombudsman, who claimed that it was their job, not ARTA’s.

“I noticed that although a lot of chambers lauded the measure, they noticed and nakita din namin as authors na humina ang cases filed and I know one of the reasons was Ombudsman (Samuel) Martires. I was in that one meeting where he said, ‘you shouldn’t be doing my job.’ That was the message he was giving to ARTA so much so that DG Belgica kinasuhan ng katakot takot, may mga pending case sa Ombudsman because of abuse of authority because he was doing his job to the tee, to the letter and because of that nagalit ang Ombudsman sa kanila. Ang daming LGUs ayaw sumunod dyan. And dahil nga nagalit si Ombudsman sa ARTA, hindi na makagalaw ang ARTA so parang naging recommendatory na lang. So if you talk to a lot of chambers of commerce, businessmen, it became back to normal balik sa dati.”

To add to ARTA’s woes, a number of its employees are now calling for the removal of its current head, Ernesto Perez, from his post, “to restore the public’s trust in ARTA’s mandate.”

In an anonymous complaint submitted to former executive secretary Lucas Bersamin, it was revealed that Perez, in 2024, proactively sought support from the British government, presenting several flagship initiatives to UK officials through the embassy in Manila, only to unilaterally suspend all engagements without explanation. The UK embassy became aware of the suspension only through an email sent to ARTA division chiefs, which was inadvertently copied to the embassy. They also complained about several instances of confirmed international engagements with foreign donor institutions, only for Perez to abruptly withdraw participation, causing reputational harm and embarrassment to the Philippine government. They also accused Perez of contract splitting in violation of government procurement laws and of traveling frequently instead of fulfilling ARTA’s mandate.

There were also complaints about why only 24 cases, out of thousands of cases on red tape, were referred by ARTA either to the Civil Service Commission or the Ombudsman in the past three years and how ARTA had been reporting a closure rate for complaints filed with it of 97.85 percent last year and 98.97 percent this year when all it did was refer the cases back to the agency that caused the red tape.

It is also claimed that while ARTA had been boasting that the Philippines is within the top 40 percent of 50 economies in the Business Ready (B-READY) report, which evaluates business and investment climates in economies worldwide, the agency failed to mention how the country scored alarmingly low on the two pillars of public services and operational efficiency.

While in 2020 based on the World Bank Doing Business Report, it takes only 33 days to start a business while the cost to start a business is 23.3 percent of income per capita, now, according to the 2025 World Bank B-READY report, it takes 75 days to register a domestic firm and 106 days for foreign firms, and the cost to start a business has increased to 57-58 percent of GNI per capita.

Since Congress has been increasing ARTA’s budget every y0ear, the public deserves to know why it has become even more challenging to do business in the Philippines.

For comments, email at [email protected]