OPINION
Ed Javier
Ralph Recto The Genius Who Lets The Sick Wait And Lets GOCCs Gamble
Photo credit: DOF
After our regular Saturday program Executive Session in DZRH, we drove back to our provincial home, rushing to beat the heavy rains and prepare for Super Typhoon Nando as forecast by PAGASA.
The air was already wet with drizzle, and we worried we might again pass through the floods of Bulacan. It was a relief to finally arrive home, away from Manila’s never-ending noise, where the silence of the province carried more peace.
It was there that we got word about an old friend in the media industry who suffered a stroke, his family now burdened by the crushing costs of medical treatment.
We felt pity, and wondered: how many more Filipino families quietly endure the same struggle?
Then another storm broke, this time in the news. President Bongbong Marcos ordered the return of ₱60 billion in PhilHealth funds earlier swept into the national treasury.
But reports showed that ₱89 billion in total had been transferred. If ₱60 billion is coming back, where is the missing ₱29 billion?
This brings us back to the man at the center of these controversies: Department of Finance Secretary Ralph Recto.
He must account for it. Was it spent on questionable flood control projects? Was it diverted to legislators’ pet roads and flyovers, some of which have been flagged in reports for overpricing and substandard work?
Or is it sitting somewhere in the treasury, waiting to be explained away? Until there is clarity, the suspicion remains: money meant for the sick may have once again been sacrificed for politics.
PhilHealth is not idle cash. It is the country’s health lifeline, covering dialysis, insulin, surgeries, chemotherapy, expenses that break families when the safety net fails.
In 2025, it received no subsidy at all because officials claimed it had leftover funds.
Yet in the proposed 2026 budget, it is suddenly slated to get ₱53.3 billion. The abrupt reversal only highlights how life, saving programs can be sidelined one year and revived the next, without clear explanation to the public.
We are told Recto is a fiscal genius. But what kind of genius sacrifices PhilHealth, the lifeline of the poor, while letting government pension funds be gambled in risky markets?
That is not genius. That is financial injustice, finance at the expense of the sick.
Recto defended the transfer, saying: “We cannot, in good conscience, allow funds to languish in bank accounts as our nation’s needs multiply daily.”
No debate, we understand the need to tap idle resources instead of letting them sit unused in GOCC banks. But what he did not explain was why vital health projects had no budget to begin with.
Because Congress, to create “fiscal space,” downgraded these projects, dialysis, medicines, rural hospitals, even ODA counterpart funds for major transportation projects, from programmed to unprogrammed.
Programmed funds are sure money, cash on hand. Unprogrammed funds are promises on paper, dependent on excess revenues or loans that may never come.
In effect, health was pushed aside to make way for infrastructure. Yet, Mr. Secretary, infra can wait. The sick cannot.
Meanwhile, GSIS and SSS under Recto’s watch have been pouring billions into risky equities, Metro Pacific, Alternergy, Digiplus. TIEZA, PAGCOR, and other GOCCs also sit on revenues that could have been tapped.
As Chief economic manager, Recto could have pulled those funds to safer ground, or shielded PhilHealth altogether. Instead, he chose to drain the surest safety net of the sick.
As Congress now begins deliberating on the 2026 budget, we must stay vigilant and guard every peso, resisting any move that undermines PhilHealth’s life-saving role.
We hope Filipinos remember Secretary Recto, if he runs in 2028, as the fiscal genius who sacrificed the sick and let workers’ pensions dance in a roulette of risky stocks.
Para sa may sakit, pera’y agad kinukuha. Ang kumuha, sa 2028, sana’y inyong maalala.
Pondo ng pensioners, isinusugal muna sa Metro Pacific, Alternergy, Digiplus.
Laban o bawi? Kantyaw ng mga tsupitero sa merkado, Long Term?
Ayoko ng maging genius.
The air was already wet with drizzle, and we worried we might again pass through the floods of Bulacan. It was a relief to finally arrive home, away from Manila’s never-ending noise, where the silence of the province carried more peace.
It was there that we got word about an old friend in the media industry who suffered a stroke, his family now burdened by the crushing costs of medical treatment.
We felt pity, and wondered: how many more Filipino families quietly endure the same struggle?
Then another storm broke, this time in the news. President Bongbong Marcos ordered the return of ₱60 billion in PhilHealth funds earlier swept into the national treasury.
But reports showed that ₱89 billion in total had been transferred. If ₱60 billion is coming back, where is the missing ₱29 billion?
This brings us back to the man at the center of these controversies: Department of Finance Secretary Ralph Recto.
He must account for it. Was it spent on questionable flood control projects? Was it diverted to legislators’ pet roads and flyovers, some of which have been flagged in reports for overpricing and substandard work?
Or is it sitting somewhere in the treasury, waiting to be explained away? Until there is clarity, the suspicion remains: money meant for the sick may have once again been sacrificed for politics.
PhilHealth is not idle cash. It is the country’s health lifeline, covering dialysis, insulin, surgeries, chemotherapy, expenses that break families when the safety net fails.
In 2025, it received no subsidy at all because officials claimed it had leftover funds.
Yet in the proposed 2026 budget, it is suddenly slated to get ₱53.3 billion. The abrupt reversal only highlights how life, saving programs can be sidelined one year and revived the next, without clear explanation to the public.
We are told Recto is a fiscal genius. But what kind of genius sacrifices PhilHealth, the lifeline of the poor, while letting government pension funds be gambled in risky markets?
That is not genius. That is financial injustice, finance at the expense of the sick.
Recto defended the transfer, saying: “We cannot, in good conscience, allow funds to languish in bank accounts as our nation’s needs multiply daily.”
No debate, we understand the need to tap idle resources instead of letting them sit unused in GOCC banks. But what he did not explain was why vital health projects had no budget to begin with.
Because Congress, to create “fiscal space,” downgraded these projects, dialysis, medicines, rural hospitals, even ODA counterpart funds for major transportation projects, from programmed to unprogrammed.
Programmed funds are sure money, cash on hand. Unprogrammed funds are promises on paper, dependent on excess revenues or loans that may never come.
In effect, health was pushed aside to make way for infrastructure. Yet, Mr. Secretary, infra can wait. The sick cannot.
Meanwhile, GSIS and SSS under Recto’s watch have been pouring billions into risky equities, Metro Pacific, Alternergy, Digiplus. TIEZA, PAGCOR, and other GOCCs also sit on revenues that could have been tapped.
As Chief economic manager, Recto could have pulled those funds to safer ground, or shielded PhilHealth altogether. Instead, he chose to drain the surest safety net of the sick.
As Congress now begins deliberating on the 2026 budget, we must stay vigilant and guard every peso, resisting any move that undermines PhilHealth’s life-saving role.
We hope Filipinos remember Secretary Recto, if he runs in 2028, as the fiscal genius who sacrificed the sick and let workers’ pensions dance in a roulette of risky stocks.
Para sa may sakit, pera’y agad kinukuha. Ang kumuha, sa 2028, sana’y inyong maalala.
Pondo ng pensioners, isinusugal muna sa Metro Pacific, Alternergy, Digiplus.
Laban o bawi? Kantyaw ng mga tsupitero sa merkado, Long Term?
Ayoko ng maging genius.
Ed Javier
Ed Javier is a veteran communicator with over 35 years of experience in corporate, government, and advocacy communications, spanning the terms of seven Philippine presidents. He is also a political analyst, entrepreneur, and media professional. Drawing on this experience, he delivers clear, accessible analysis of political, governance, and business issues.
Sep 22, 2025
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