Metro Manila, Philippines – Former Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman and others are facing a plunder and technical malversation complaint over the outlawed transfer of ₱60 billion in state health insurance funds to the national treasury.
Health advocate Tony Leachon filed the complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman on Thursday, May 28, officially implicating Pangandaman in the questionable transfer of excess Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) funds.
“The filling clarifies that DBM (Department of Budget and Management) officials — past and present — authorized, approved, or failed to prevent the budgetary releases and fiscal measures that enabled the questioned transfers,” Leachon said in his statement.
He earlier filed the same complaints against Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, along with a number of Cabinet members, for remittance of the said billions from PhilHealth as finance chief.
In 2025, the Supreme Court has ordered the return of the ₱60 billion to PhilHealth, saying the special provison in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) that made the transfer to the national treasury possible was carried out with grave abuse of discretion.
Leachon earlier said the return was too late “for the families already buried in debt and “the patients who never received care.”
In response, Recto called the new complaint a harassment case and maintained that the transfer was mandated by law through the GAA, noting that the Philhealth funds had been returned.
Pangandaman has yet to comment on the complaint.
