Manila, Philippines – There’s an elephant in the room that is being ignored, and it is bigger than the P60-billion public funds taken from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), a former solon said on Monday.
The P107.23 billion in “excess funds” of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) covering 2024, but remitted to the national treasury in January this year to bankroll government projects, should also be returned to the deposit insurer, former Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Isagani Zarate said.
The Supreme Court earlier ordered the return of PhilHealth’s P60 billion, but that ruling was mum about the PDIC remittance to the national coffers, Zarate said.
”The Supreme Court’s decision on the PhilHealth funds is a welcome, though partial, affirmation that public funds must not be used at the mere whim of the executive branch,” Zarate, one of the principal petitioners, said in a statement on Monday, Dec. 8.
“However, the absence of a similar pronouncement regarding the P107-billion PDIC fund transfer is concerning,” his statement read.
The PDIC’s P107-billion fund, intended as an insurance safety net for bank depositors, has been “similarly raided from a Government-Owned and Controlled Corporation (GOCC) to fund the Marcos Jr. government’s unprogrammed appropriations,” Zarate claimed.
Under the law, banks contribute to the PDIC deposit insurance fund – sourced from depositors – to protect bank deposits of up to P1 million per bank account.
At the time the PDIC remitted the P107-billion “excess funds,” the deposit insurer said its trust fund was still enough to cover bank failures. The money partially funded the government’s food stamp program, the Panay-Guimaras-Negros bridges, Metro Manila subway, and North-South Commuter railway, among others, according to a PDIC statement in January.
But Zarate questioned the legality of the executive branch’s and Congress’s ability to “arbitrarily designate special GOCC funds as ‘excess’ and reallocate them, bypassing the proper budget scrutiny.”
The absence of a ruling against the PDIC fund transfer “effectively leaves a dangerous legal loophole open,” the former House lawmaker said.
“Congress may once again be emboldened to insert a special provision in the General Appropriations Act, the national budget, to allow such transfers from various GOCCs to fund unprogrammed items,” Zarate said in his statement.
