Manila, April 2 -- Finance Secretary Ralph Recto on Wednesday defended the transfer of idle and unused Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) funds, as well as those from other government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCC) into the national coffers.

Appearing before the Supreme Court, Recto said the decision to secure funds was a "common-sense approach" to allow the government to forgo borrowing funds abroad to fund key projects.

"First, we are still recovering from the pandemic that gave us the hardest economic blow -- a contraction of 9.5 percent in 2020 -- the lowest since post-World War II. To address both health and economic needs during that crisis, the government had to borrow more money -- utang na minana ng kasal...