The drama we witnessed in yesterday’s bicameral conference was not merely procedural. It was philosophical. It was ethical. And at its core, it was about power—who controls it, who benefits from it, and who is made to beg for it.
Buried beneath the technical language of budget harmonization was a deeply contentious insertion: additional funding for MAIFIP, a program that many lawmakers quietly want to expand. Not because it strengthens public health—but because it restores discretion.
MAIFIP, as proposed, resembles a pork-barrel-style health assistance program controlled not by doctors, hospitals, or health institutions—but by congressional offices.
That alone should trouble us.
For decades, the country struggled to dismantle systems where access to public funds depended on political favor. The Supreme Court itself drew a hard constitutional line, striking down discretionary programs that allowed legislators to influence who received state resources. That ruling was not about technicalities; it was about dignity, accountability, and the separation of powers.
And yet here we are again.
MAIFIP does not strengthen Universal Health Care.
It sidesteps it.
Under the UHC Law, every Filipino is supposed to have automatic, rules-based access to health services through PhilHealth. No endorsements. No letters. No political intermediaries. Care is a right, not a favor.
MAIFIP introduces a parallel system—one that revives discretion where rights were meant to rule.
Instead of strengthening PhilHealth, funds are diverted.
Instead of empowering the Department of Health, resources are fragmented.
Instead of building a coherent national health system, we return to ad hoc assistance—filtered through offices that were never meant to dispense care.
This is not reform. It is regression.
When a patient must knock on a politician’s door to access treatment, dignity is already lost.
When healthcare depends on influence, inequality is institutionalized.
When public funds bypass the very agencies mandated to implement health policy, the system itself erodes.
The deepest tragedy is this: MAIFIP is presented as compassion.
But true compassion does not require a signature from a congressman.
True compassion does not force the sick to plead.
True compassion builds systems where help arrives automatically, fairly, and without humiliation.
Universal Health Care was designed to remove politics from the hospital ward. MAIFIP risks putting it back—quietly, incrementally, and dangerously.
This is why the unease persists.
This is why resistance matters.
Strengthen UHC.
Protect PhilHealth funds.
Respect constitutional boundaries.
End discretionary health financing.
Health care should never be a favor dispensed by power.
It must remain a right guaranteed by law.
Put patients—not politics—at the center.
