Newly appointed Health Secretary Edwin Mercado revealed Saturday that the Department of Health (DOH) and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) will no longer operate as two separate agencies but will merge their roadmaps under a single Unified National Agenda for Health, or UNA, anchored on five pillars covering communities, schools, workplaces, hospitals, and digital health systems.
Mercado made the statement in an interview on DZRH News program Special on Saturday on August 22, as part of the DZRH SONA 2026 Series featuring the DOH, one of his major public appearances together with fellow Health Department executives since taking his oath as Health Secretary on August 11.
He noted that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. mentioned PhilHealth twelve times and the DOH only four times in his State of the Nation Address, a signal he said underscores the need to unite the two institutions under one coherent health governance framework.
“Ngayon moving forward, pag-iisahin na natin ‘yan. Yung labing-anim ay ang sektor ng pangkalusugan, so hindi na natin paghihiwalayin yung PhilHealth at DOH kasi tayo ay nagbalangkas ng bagong unified healthcare agenda o UNA para sa kalusugan na kung saan ang roadmap namin as DOH and PhilHealth ay iisa,” Mercado said.
He said the first pillar of UNA focuses on healthy communities, schools, and workplaces, meaning DOH and PhilHealth will proactively reach Filipinos where they live, study, and work rather than waiting for them to come to hospitals.
“Inihalintulad ko ang healthcare scenario sa isang gubat na kung saan meron namang mga sinag na tumatagos doon sa pagitan ng mga dahon ng ating mga puno. Yung sa aking analogy, umaabot sa forest floor na nakikinabang yung ating mga mamamayan. Ang aming objective ay palakihin yung mga beams of light na tumatagos para umabot dito sa forest floor,” Mercado said.
Mercado revealed that a Joint Memorandum Circular is being finalized among DOH, PhilHealth, the Department of Education, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and the Department of Labor and Employment to standardize health service delivery in schools, communities, daycare centers, and workplaces.
“Meron na tayong Joint Memorandum Circular na binabalangkas with DSWD, with DepEd, and DOH. Sana by that time, malinis na yung polisiya para sa schools, DSWD communities, at tsaka monitoring ng mga daycare centers. Kasama na rin yung DOLE dun naman sa healthy workforce, para may basehan na tayo moving forward with one singular focus,” Mercado said.
PhilHealth President and CEO Beverly Ho said the unified approach means that Yakap or Yaman ng Kalusugan, PhilHealth’s primary care program, will now serve as the mother policy for all health benefit delivery across communities, schools, and workplaces, with implementation guidelines being tailored to each specific setting.
“Klaro po sa amin na yung Yakap na policy namin ngayon, yung benepisyo, siya na yung parang mother policy namin. In order to reach more people, we need to have implementation guidelines na unique sa bawat setting,” Ho said.
Mercado said the unified agenda reflects the Marcos administration’s belief that healthcare must be experienced by Filipinos not as a government transaction but as a genuine embrace, hence the name Yakap, the Filipino word for embrace.
