Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa on Sunday said the Department of Health (DOH) was already investigating anomalies surrounding 400 ‘idle’ health centers under the agency even ‘before the media picked it up.’
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Herbosa responded to an online interview of Health Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Dr. Albert Domingo.
‘Actually the DOH has been investigating these anomalies way before media picked it up,’ Herbosa said.
‘Several actions have been taken already and we continue to do case buildup,’ Herbosa added.
During the committee-level hearing for the DOH’s proposed budget for 2026, Herbosa tagged the agency’s health facilities enhancement program (HFEP) as the ‘flood control version’ of the agency.
The HFEP, launched in 2008, is DOH’s banner program that aims to ensure that poor and marginalized communities have access to healthcare services. With this revelation, Akbayan Party-list Rep. Chel Diokno, during the House plenary debates of the agency’s proposed budget, questioned why only 200 out of 600 health centers under the HFEP are functional despite being allocated over P170 billion in the past decade.
However, budget sponsor and Bataan 2nd District Rep. Albert Garcia clarified that while the HFEP has no ‘ghost hospitals,’ the lack of personnel and healthcare professionals to run the facilities made them non-functioning.
Garcia also said that the DOH entered into a memorandum of agreement with local governments in ‘good faith,’ as it expected them to provide personnel.
Herbosa also shared that the agency is ‘looking for options to operationalize non-functioning completed health facilities.’ Meanwhile, when asked what kind of actions the agency had already taken in relation to the investigation, Domingo said ‘they are actions meant for mandated investigative bodies and the formal Courts of law.’