by Diego Morra
How could the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. nip graft and corruption in the bud when it allows bogus budgetary items to sully the annual appropriations act, with the latest fiscal cancer coming in the form of the Medical Assistance for Indigents and Financially Incapacitated Patients (MAIFIP), which subverts the very concept of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act? Here again is a duplication of budgetary allocation that, in itself allows members of the two chambers of Congress to choose beneficiaries consistent with patronage politics.
Under the UHC Act, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) is the primary payer for individual-based health services. Why then does Congress want to allocate billions for MAIFIP? On Dec. 13, the notorious bicameral conference committee for the 2026 budget shamelessly approved P51.65 billion for MAIFIP, more than 100% higher than the P24.24-billion originally proposed in the National Expenditure Program (NEP.) PhilHealth’s budget to cover premiums for indirect contributors got an allocation of P69.78 billion. This amount, which includes the bicam’s P16.5 billion increase from the NEP and the Lower House’s P53-billion proposal, is not reflective of the altruism of lawmakers since the money will come from the revenues from the sin taxes already set aside for PhilHealth next year, Social Watch Philippines (SWP) co-convenor Maria Victoria Raquiza revealed.
SWP has come out with its guns blazing against MAIFIP, which has been crafted precisely to allow lawmakers to name the beneficiaries, from their ward leaders to their “followers” spread out in congressional districts or in their political organizations. To obviate the possibility of dispensing cash for those not entitled to receive them, the logical approach would be to centralize the funds in PhilHealth, which is already mandated to pay for the medical and health insurance premiums of indirect contributors numbering 24.48 million. SWP estimates that for PhilHealth to truly serve its vast constituency, the corporation needs its budget allocation next year to be at least P147 billion. The share from sin taxes is one of the sources of funds allocated to PhilHealth to meet this obligation.
It is not only SWP that has criticized the obvious machination to spread MAIFIP funds to the political bailiwicks of congressmen and senators but also to vested interest groups eyeing a share of the loot. This practice of squandermania, popularized by Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio through fictitious characters led by Mary Grace Piattos, will worsen with P51.65-billion earmarked for political patronage. The Makabayan Coalition, Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Kabataan and ACT Teachers had earlier joined the battle to stop the practice of filching the funds of PhilHealth, as what former Finance Secretary Ralph Recto’s did when he sequestered more than P60 billion of PhilHealth “reserve funds” to bankroll projects for which the regime had no money to implement.
It turns out that the former genius of the House ways and means committee and defeated Albay Rep. Joey Salceda was responsible for the very bright idea. Only that there is no such animal as “reserve fund” contemplated in the law that created PhilHealth. By fiddling with the law and exercising abstruse discretion as huge as the leviathan of the Dead Sea, Salceda and Recto rewrote the law, for which the Supreme Court (SC) chastised them for snatching oodles of money comparative to the inundation of cash for lawmakers involved in flood control projects. Progressive lawmakers belonging to the Makabayan Bloc have also called on profitable agencies to account for the money they have not remitted to PhilHealth despite their mandate to do so.
Under the UHC Act, PhilHealth was supposed to receive money from both the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) of Al Tengco and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) of Melquiades Robles, a pair of gambling taipans and favorites of the Palace, but their atraso to PhilHealth has skyrocketed to an astronomical P107 billion since 2019. PhilHealth has not received a single peso from this humongous sum, an amount that could have been used to subsidize the medical and health expenses of its members and indigents numbering millions.
On Nov. 4, 2025, a total of 88 civil society organizations (CSOs), including SWP, health professionals, patient groups, labor organizations and members of the basic social sectors, denounced MAIFIP as the newest pork barrel scheme masquerading as a medical and health fund. Raquiza argued that expanding MAIFIP is anathema to the single-payer principle and corrupts the core values of UHC, which are equity, fairness, inclusiveness and solidarity. “We are gravely appalled by this brazen move by Congress despite the people’s clamor. The real beneficiaries are not the patients but the traditional politicians who will merely perpetuate patronage,” Raquiza explained.
The proposed 2026 budget for this ayudang trapo is expected to reach only 1.27 million indigent Filipino patients as opposed to the 24.48 million indirect contributors and their dependents served by PhilHealth, Raquiza added. SWP argued that the 2026 budget presents an opportunity for Congress and the President to allocate the legally mandated PhilHealth budget in accordance with the UHC Act and prevent further violations of the law even as advocates want to bring the justiciable before the Supreme Court (SC), weeks after the High Tribunal ruled that Recto acted whimsically in sequestering PhilHealth money to finance projects that had no allocations, contrary to the spirit and letter of the annual appropriations act.
