Medical Action Group (MAG) and Action for Economic Reforms (AER) condemn the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) signed by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. on December 30, 2024.

MAG and AER criticize the President’s inaction on the zero budget allocation for the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) despite numerous appeals from citizens and civil society groups.

MAG and AER maintain that the 2025 GAA violates the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act and the Sin Tax Reform Laws. Further, they argue that the 2025 GAA is unconstitutional, as jurisprudence states that an appropriations law cannot amend a statute.

Both organizations also regard the President’s direct veto on the budget items of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) amounting to PhP 26 billion as deceptive and diversionary, for it does not solve any of the fundamental issues surrounding the 2025 budget.

Earlier, MAG and AER called the 2025 Corporate Operating Budget (COB) of PhilHealth a “do-nothing” budget as a result of the zero budget in the GAA. The insistence of a zero budget because PhilHealth has reserves to spend will further delay any significant rollout of the primary care benefit package–the Konsulta package–that supports the key mandate of the UHC to register all Filipinos with a primary care provider. Konsulta is not yet fully implemented despite its approval in 2022. It has only provided reimbursements for only one percent of the Filipino population. The full implementation of the Konsulta will cost PhilHealth PhP 194 billion annually in order to provide a PhP 1,700 primary care package for each of the 114 million Filipinos.

MAG and AER challenge PhilHealth to disclose to the public the consequences of loss of membership registration of indirect contributors due to zero premium subsidy. In 2024, PhilHealth already shed 13% of registered members when it was only able to register 83% of the population, a decline from 96% in 2023.

The 2025 budget of PhilHealth is mainly sourced from the contributions of the direct contributors, particularly the working class, amounting to Php 202 billion, and does not provide for premiums of the 25.28 million indirect contributors. PhilHealth should explain how it will register 25 million indirect members and their 16 million dependents when they have not provided for it in its 2025 COB.

The non-allocation for PhilHealth in the GAA will have an impact on the state’s capacity to sustain health care financing and affect the country’s health outcomes. The underfunding of PhilHealth and UHC is manifested in the increasing maternal and infant mortality rates, higher incidence of tuberculosis, and rising occupancy rates of Department of Health (DOH) hospitals. The maternal care, newborn care, and TB packages of PhilHealth are only serving a small proportion of vulnerable populations.

The poor public health outcomes will worsen, and the country will be unable to meet its Sustainable Development Goals Commitments by 2030.

In effect, the zero budget for PhilHealth means that the government is leaving the burden of funding PhilHealth to the workers.

MAG and AER also challenge the DOF and the Department of Budget and Management to disclose the allocation of the already-collected excise taxes in 2024 on tobacco and sugar-sweetened beverages as provided for under the Sin Tax Laws (RA 10351 and RA 11346), which mandates that 80% of the 50% of the collected revenues be used exclusively to implement Universal Health Care and allocated to PhilHealth.

MAG and AER support the call of various groups from the labor sector, medical community, and civil society to seek redress from the Supreme Court against the 2025 GAA that provides an unlawful zero budget to PhilHealth. This clearly violates the Filipino people’s right to health.