Senator-elect Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito on Friday, June 3 said he will ask President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to issue an executive order that would suspend the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) premium hike scheduled this year.

“He wants to prioritize the Universal Healthcare Law, which is really a good sign. But I would strongly suggest that while we are still recovering from the pandemic, we have to suspend everything,” Ejercito said in an interview on CNN Philippine’s The Source.

“I’m hoping to get the chance to talk to President-elect Bongbong Marcos again so that I can suggest to him to suspend the increase in premiums until we are back to a normal situation,” the senator further said.

PhilHealth has raised premium rates by four percent this year to augment funding for a variety of medical services and facilities mandated under the Universal Healthcare Law.

Early last year, the state health insurance agency deferred its premium increase for the year 2021 after President Rodrigo Duterte called for the suspension of the scheduled premium hike.

Ejercito, who was the principal sponsor of the Universal Healthcare Law, there is a necessity to adjust to the “abnormal” situation caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

“When the law was being crafted and drafted, it was normal times. It was pre-pandemic. The economy of the world, not only of the Philippines, was doing very well. Everybody had security of tenure,” he explained.

“But now that we went through the pandemic, it’s an abnormal situation. We are now in a health crisis,” the incoming senator pointed out.

Ejercito said it is imperative that Philhealth first show proof that all leakages have been plugged before increasing premiums.

Nevertheless, he said he also understands why the agency has to come up with adequate funding for the full implementation of the Universal Healthcare Law.

“From what I remember, P257-billion was needed for the first year of implementation but what was appropriated was only P170-billion,” he said.

“Kaya hilaw siya (it was not enough). We were not able to really maximize the budget or cover everybody,” he noted.

At the same time, Ejercito also said he hopes to secure chairmanship of the Senate finance committee to ensure that unused funding from other government agencies would be used to subsidize health care services mandated under the Universal Healthcare Law.

He said there are many departments that have unused appropriations, that have really big budgets, thus, the government can source funding from those so it can offset PhilHealth contributions.

“I will be looking for other sources of funds or budgets that are unused. I’m hoping that we will be able to complete the needed P257 billion so that people can already feel the impact of the law,” Ejercito said.