Emotion, not reason, behind plunder raps vs Recto in PhilHealth fund transfer

In 2024, several countries were so hard up economically that their GDP growth was really low, like Italy’s 0.7%, Japan’s 0.1% and Germany’s -0.2%, which was an economic contraction. Other Asian countries were growing at below 5%, like Singapore’s 4.4%, Taiwan’s 4.3%, Thailand and Hong Kong’s 2.5%, and South Korea’s 2%.

But the Philippines grew by 5.7%, the third highest growth among the world’s top 50 large economies by GDP size, trailing only Vietnam and India.

Our inflation rate also fell, from 6% in 2023 to only 3.2% in 2024, and further down to only 1.6% in 2025 (see the table).

The outstanding performance of the Philippines was led by the economic team including former Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto. President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. saw Mr. Recto’s hard work at the Department of Finance (DoF) so he promoted him to be his Executive Secretary last November.

Then out came the brickbats. See these reports in BusinessWorld: “Plunder, other raps filed vs Recto, Ledesma over PhilHealth fund transfer” (Dec. 22, 2025), “Fresh plunder complaint filed against Recto, Ledesma over PhilHealth fund transfer” (Jan. 15).

I think these cases can be considered “emotional misconduct” by the petitioners, who used the Supreme Court ruling on the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) fund transfer but did not read the arguments of the Justices who said that there was no plunder, no malversation of funds, no misconduct on the part of Mr. Recto. As per Justice Raul B. Villanueva:

“As previously discussed, and further explained herein, Special Provision 1(d) and DoF Circular No. 003-2024 are not unconstitutional….

“Crucially as well, the requisite elements, among others, for both technical malversation or plunder are not present. For plunder, the core element of amassing or acquiring ill-gotten wealth is completely negated as the PhilHealth fund balance was actually remitted to the National Treasury, and to no one else, particularly not even to the Office of the President or the DoF. As to technical malversation, a key element is that the questioned funds was placed ‘under (the offender’s) administration,’ which is not what happened in the case of the PhilHealth fund balance since what was transferred to the National Treasury was not directly handled by the President or the DoF Secretary….

“Secretary Recto cannot be held liable for issuing DoF Circular No. 003-2024… The DoF was directed to issue DoF Circular No. 003-2024 as required in Special Provision 1(d). In doing so, it precisely obeyed a special provision in the 2024 GAA. Clearly, the DoF did not act solely on its own or issued the subject circular without any basis or authority at all. The language of Special Provision 1(d) is unequivocal; the DoF has the duty to issue the guidelines to implement the said provision within 15 days from the effectivity of the 2024 GAA. For its obedience, no fault can or should be attributed to the DoF…

“To hold Secretary Recto liable in any way whatsoever is like punishing him for simply doing his job. If he did not comply with the valid dictates of Special Provision 1(d), then he may possibly become culpable of violating the law, which would have made his situation even worse.”

Justice Raul Villanueva was my contemporary at the University of the Philippines (UP) School of Economics undergrad in the mid-1980s. We belong to the same organization, UP Economics Towards Consciousness (UP-ETC), along with Justice Marvic Leonen, though they are respectively younger and older than me by one year. Justice Villanueva was an intelligent economics student, then proceeded to UP Law. His arguments in the excerpt above are consistent with his high academic achievements and objective assessment.

The petitioners used emotion and not reason, and intellectual dishonesty when they filed their plunder case against Mr. Recto. The man has worked hard to improve the Philippines’ economy. Let him do more hard work for the country and not be harassed by emotional litigation.

Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the president of Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. Research Consultancy Services, and Minimal Government Thinkers. He is an international fellow of the Tholos Foundation.

minimalgovernment@gmail.com