Budget cuts are the wrong punishment

There’s much to be alarmed about with the recently ratified 2025 General Appropriations bill, so I’m genuinely puzzled on why there are no widespread protests in the streets.

Government subsidy to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) has been stripped completely, while P10 billion was cut from the Department of Education (DepEd), originally meant for its computerization program. Significant cuts were also made on the budgets of the Commission on Higher Education, the Department of Social Work and Development, and the Department of Health. At the same time, the Department of Public Works and Highways and Congress proved to be the biggest gainers, with former Senate president Franklin Drilon saying that the huge allocations may have contained pork barrel funds, just in time for election year.

Do you see the pattern here?

Let’s start with PhilHealth. By removing government subsidy, members of the bicam conference committee who approved the budget are not punishing the ineptitude of the agency’s administrators; they are punishing us, its members. The financial burden was shifted solely on our shoulders, when our PhilHealth membership was mandatory in the first place.

We already suffer from the lack of comprehensive coverage of health services, yet are still the ones facing the consequences of PhilHealth not spending its funds adequately. Why should we bear the brunt of PhilHealth’s supposed punishment? Government should not opt out of its responsibility, in the same way that PhilHealth members cannot opt out of their premium payments.

If the problem is that PhilHealth has too much reserve funds (unthinkable for patients and health providers who are still waiting to be reimbursed), then why not demand the return of members’ contributions instead? It is too self-serving of the government to withdraw its own commitment while compelling employees to continue their premium payments.

Health is a human right and, as such, is our collective responsibility. I am willing to pay for someone else’s health care as long as it does just that: pay for someone’s health care. But as a PhilHealth member, I am not paying so that the government doesn’t have to.

As for DepEd’s budget cut, the rationale given was the Vice President and former DepEd secretary’s lack of spending activity on earmarked projects (while having lightning-fast disbursement of her confidential funds). Despite the blatant corruption and self-serving focus of the previous DepEd chief, it doesn’t make sense to punish the next secretary and the agency, especially as it is trying to recover and regain lost footing from the wild ride that was the Vice President’s tenure. With less funds than before, how can DepEd catch up on its commitment to improve our lagging public education system?

There is a fatal flaw in logic when the way Congress “punishes” incompetent officials is by withholding funds. The first error is a misidentification of the problem. The proposed solution only works when the real problem is that an agency simply has too much funds. But the issue here is that funds are not being spent where they should. Therefore, the logical solution is to ensure that funds are used.

Removing funds and decreasing a department’s budget only serve to exacerbate the poor state of public programs and services, especially in health and education. By removing financial support, you are making it that much harder for these agencies to achieve their goals. This, in turn, will make them more vulnerable to more budget cuts as their programs fail to deliver.

If the problem is that funds are not being spent fast enough, then we should identify obstacles to proper spending. Where is the bottleneck in procurement? How many administrative steps and paperwork are needed for a successful financial transaction? How long and gnarly is the public bidding process? How long does a piece of paper stay in one officer’s desk before it gets acted on?

My own limited experience in public research and operational funds alone can attest to how difficult it is for money to be spent. The request can get rejected at so many levels even with the line-item budget already approved. Just trying to procure papers and pens can take many months because of how government procurement works! (So it boggles the mind imagining how the VP managed to spend her funds within days.)

If the government is sincere in its intention to ensure that funds are spent well, they should focus on simplifying procurement and bidding processes so that the timeline from request to disbursement can be shortened to days instead of months. If funds are withheld because the agency’s administrators cannot be trusted to oversee them properly, then fire them. Withholding funds from essential human services only hurt Filipinos.

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