FIRING LINE: Never again

FIRING LINE: Never again

By Robert B. Roque, Jr. l December 11, 2025

With corruption scandals tightening around this administration and whispers of destabilization refusing to die, President Bongbong Marcos is at least playing his cards right with the military.

I’m talking about the well-timed announcement he made last week: a three-tranche salary increase for all military and uniformed personnel starting January 2026. The jump in subsistence allowance he approved is no joke — from P150 to P350.

Nearly 470,000 soldiers, cops, firemen, jail guards, coast guards, and personnel of the NAMRIA, plus pensioners automatically indexed to their pay, will directly benefit from this generous token from this administration.

In mandating a 5% raise in 2026, 4.75% in 2027, and 4.55% in 2028, Marcos Junior has made a neat reminder of who signs their payslips, and when their loyalty is being called upon. 

The Palace can call it “fair compensation” all it wants, but it really does smell more like political insurance. I cannot blame him, though. He’s learned a good lesson from the past about how the military, when pushed and pulled in the right direction, can walk out on the powers that be — just as it did with his father in 1986. It’s his version of “never again.”

Reclaiming healthcare funds

Hail to the Supreme Court for reminding this administration of a basic truth: PhilHealth money belongs to the sick, not to fund-hungry officials scrambling to cover budget holes of their own making. The High Court’s unanimous order to return P60 billion and permanently block the diversion of another P29.9 billion is not just a legal victory — it is a moral rebuke.

Rep. Robert Nazal said it plainly: “PhilHealth funds are for patients, not for plugging budget gaps.” Former Rep. Bernadette Herrera sharpened the point: “Health care funds are lifelines. They are not spare cash for government use.”

Yet the gall of certain finance managers was astonishing — treating workers’ contributions as if they were loose change lying around the Treasury. As TUCP’s Raymond Mendoza warned, these are the hard-earned pesos of Filipino workers, not “dormant reserves” to be siphoned off at will.

The Court’s ruling doesn’t just restore money; it restores boundaries. It forces the government to remember that Universal Health Care (UHC) is not a slogan, nor a legal ornament — it is a promise funded by taxpayers and kept alive by the poor who die on hospital beds waiting for the care they paid for.

PhilHealth itself admits the decision is a “challenge” — a test to prove that every peso must return to the people as benefits, not bureaucratic greed.

The message is now etched in jurisprudence: health funds must stay in health. And it’s time the government made UHC a living program, not a law betrayed by those sworn to uphold it.

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