MANILA – Former Akbayan party-list Rep. Barry Gutierrez David unleashed a blistering critique of the government’s handling of the Supreme Court’s order to return P60 billion to PhilHealth, branding any plan to “backfill” the diverted funds with fresh taxpayer money as a second wave of robbery that mocks the victims of the original graft. In a series of fiery Facebook posts on December 7, 2025, David demanded that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Congress pursue recovery from the profiteers – public officials and contractors implicated in the flood control kickback scandal – rather than dipping into the public purse again, warning that anything less entrenches a “culture of impunity” that has already hollowed out trust in institutions.
David’s outrage centers on the Supreme Court’s unanimous 15-0 ruling on November 28, voiding the diversion of P60 billion from PhilHealth’s “excess” reserves to the national treasury under Special Provision 1(d) of the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA) and Department of Finance Circular 003-2024. The funds, part of PhilHealth’s P89.9 billion unused balance, were funneled into unprogrammed appropriations for the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) flood control projects – initiatives unrelated to health care and riddled with anomalies like ghost builds and kickbacks. “The people have been robbed—still the people have to pay?” David fumed. “How is that not a kind of double jeopardy—at least in the moral sense? The public was robbed once, and now we are being told to foot the bill again? This is unacceptable.”
He argued that the court’s directive isn’t a blank check for fiscal sleight-of-hand but a mandate for restitution from the culprits. “Anything less only reinforces the culture of impunity that allowed this massive theft to happen in the first place,” David wrote, calling for the freezing, garnishing, or seizing of assets from those who masterminded or benefited from the scheme, alongside swift criminal charges. “This is about justice—for every worker whose PhilHealth contributions were stolen, every depositor whose safety net was endangered, and every Filipino whose taxes are constantly held hostage by corruption disguised as ‘flood control.’”
The controversy traces back to a petition led by former Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, alongside ex-Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, former Finance Undersecretary Cielo Magno, retired Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, former Commission on Audit Commissioner Heidi Mendoza, labor and medical groups, health-care workers, Bayan Muna leaders, the 1Sambayan Coalition, and the UP College of Law Class of 1975. They challenged the transfer as a violation of the Universal Health Care Act and the 2012 Sin Tax Reform Law, which earmark funds strictly for health services. The court agreed, ruling that “realigning or pooling health insurance funds outside their intended purpose will not withstand legal scrutiny,” ensuring PhilHealth’s resources remain ring-fenced for care.
PhilHealth hailed the decision as a “win for every Filipino who relies on an adequately funded and functioning PhilHealth,” thanking the court for protecting contributions from diversion. But the government’s response has drawn fire: Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, who as finance secretary championed the transfers as a “common-sense approach” to avoid borrowing, directed the House to allocate P60 billion in the proposed 2026 budget for PhilHealth benefit improvements – a move David and others decry as false restitution. “If the money had at least been transferred to the Department of Health for programmed and clearly identified health expenditures, there might have been some room—however debatable—for fiscal justification,” David conceded. “But that is not what happened… The funds were funneled into unprogrammed appropriations, most of which—as the Supreme Court itself noted—were generic insertions for DPWH flood control projects, bearing no relation to PhilHealth’s mandate or to public health.”
Atty. Rina Cantos, a petitioner, amplified the moral outrage: “This cannot be called restitution at all, for it uses, yet again, taxpayers’ money to pay for the fund that was stolen.” She urged the court to direct reimbursement from seized assets and block similar provisions in the 2026 GAA, with the bicameral conference committee avoiding the “ambiguous language” that enabled the 2024 sleight. The Office of the Solicitor General is reviewing the ruling for possible reconsideration, but David dismissed such moves as futile: “What we are really witnessing is common nonsense.”
David’s salvo isn’t isolated; it echoes broader fury over the flood scandal, where P20 billion in public funds vanished into ghost projects, leaving communities vulnerable to typhoons like Uwan. As the 2026 budget barrels toward approval, his call for vetoes on diversionary clauses and a probe into the profiteers isn’t just fiscal fine-tuning – it’s a demand for a reckoning, where justice isn’t delayed by dollars and cents, but delivered to the depleted.