As a conscientious citizen of the Republic of the Philippines, you know it is your responsibility to pay your contributions to the various authorized agencies that would look after you in sickness and in health as well as in your retirement years. But how would you react if you suddenly find out that your contributions are not being recorded properly? How would you react if your contributions, dutifully docked from your payroll account on a monthly basis and remitted by your employer would suddenly not be reflected in your record in the concerned agency? Would you be pissed off? Wouldn’t you be asking questions as to where your contributions went?
This is what one of the millions of PhilHealth members is now experiencing. Or is he not the only one? Is it time for the lot of us to suddenly peruse our pertinent Philhealth records out of the fear that our contribution may not have been properly remitted or recorded. However small out contributions may seem, they still form a huge chunk of the Philhealth budget – budget that should have been used for something that would benefit the Filipino people.
The question is, in this particular case, why were the contributions of the employee missing? And why did it happen during a particular period, right smack before the May 2016 elections? Mind you the period in question ranged from January 2015 up to April 2016 – a period of 16 months – a rather sizable chunk of your contributions if you come to think about it. Is this simply a glitch in the giant Philhealth recording machinery or is this a sign of something more sinister at play? Where did the contributions go? And is this really just an isolated case as we have previously mentioned or is this a widespread phenomenon that bears further scrutiny?
Have our contribution been siphoned off secretly to fund the campaigns of senatorial aspirants? Or have they been used to further the interests of a few people? Have our contributions – coming from our collective blood, sweat and tears – been used for some things which they should not have been used? These questions abound and have to be answered immediately by the persons and agencies concerned. This has to be brought to light, we have to be enlightened.
With the recent Dengvaxia scandal surfacing and a veritable string of anomalies currently being unearthed during the time of Department of Health Secretary Janet Garin coming into play, the question is, is this just the tip of the iceberg? Are we going to open a can of worms and have a lot of things on hand in doing so? Will these missing contributions affect our standing in the PhilHealth? Will we receive the full measure and extent of our benefits? I mean, we have to be able to know, right? It is, after all, our money – the people’s money and we as a people, have the right to know.
The stone has been cast and the ripples are going to affect a lot of things. It will uncover so many things that people would rather have stayed hidden. We might be opening Pandora’s box for all we know. And in line with this, we are asking readers to send us their screenshots of their contributions from January 2015 to April 2016 to find out if this is just a glitch or a result of something more sinister that we have been brought into. We have the right to know – the Filipino people have got a right to know. So, we invite concerned citizens to send us their screenshots to help us gather evidence, to help us shed light and settle the question that nags us once and for all. Indeed, where did our contributions go? (READ: How to Check PhilHealth Contributions Online)
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