MANILA — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday defended PhilHealth's zero subsidy, citing the state health insurer's multi-billion-peso reserves.

Marcos Jr. noted that the agency has P500 billion in reserve funds. 

"The cost to provide their services in one year is less than P100 billion," the president told reporters.

"That's why I know na naabala ang tao because bakit natin binawasan? Dahil ang katotohanan diyan ay kung tignan ninyo kaya binawi ng Department of Finance 'yung ilang reserve na naman doon na naiwan dahil hindi nagamit 'yon ng ilang taon. In other words, PhilHealth has sufficient budget to do all the things that they want to do," he added.

Marcos Jr. explained that they did not want to give subsidy to PhilHealth as it would remain unused due to problems in its system such as claim processing.

"And the reason why, the reason we do not want to subsidize because the subsidy uupo lang sa bank account ng PhilHealth, hindi magagamit, eh marami tayo paggagamitan noon so that's so that's a simple explanation there. They have sufficient funds to carry on," the President said.

He added that PhilHealth should digitize so it could streamline its processes and improve the disbursement of claims.

Marcos added that Philhealth could attend to its benefit packages, noting that the budget from the past two years is still being used to pay expanded treatments.