IT seems Health Secretary Ted Herbosa never runs out of issues hurled against him, and not just simple ones. These are issues of incompetence and graft.
And those are the reasons I believe he is always being rumored to be on the way out.
Last year, I wrote a series of articles dealing with Herbosa’s alleged incompetence and corrupt acts. The first concerned a report from the Commission on Audit (COA) indicating that the Department of Health (DOH) under his watch had a total of P1.296 billion in unliquidated cash advances to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). This reportedly affected the acquisition of additional vaccines for Filipino children, which reportedly resulted in Unicef refusing to provide the new batch of vaccines requested by the Philippines.
Among the disapproved requests from the DOH were those for the Pentavalent, BCG and Hepatitis B vaccines, amounting to P525 million.
I also wrote an article on Herbosa and five other DOH officials facing multiple corruption cases before the Office of the Ombudsman over P44.6 million worth of mental-health drugs.
It was about a complaint filed by concerned DOH personnel and health care governance advocates against Herbosa, stemming from the allegedly questionable and disproportionate allocation of government-procured psychiatric medications to a private civic organization, the Rotary Club of Quezon City.
According to the complaint, Herbosa personally gave direct verbal instruction to Farwa Hombre, then-assistant secretary of the public health service cluster and concurrent director IV, to accommodate requests from the Rotary Club, naming a certain John Aron Rey Manapsal, MD, as the contact person for Rotary.
After this, Health Undersecretary Achilles Gerard Bravo reportedly issued Department Order 2025-0080, allocating a sub-allotment of 1,527,686 to the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH) for the procurement and delivery of essential mental-health drugs.
It was allegedly discovered that the NCMH had not requested any funding. A site visit also revealed that large volumes of mental health commodities were about to expire.
Months later, the Rotary Club, acknowledging it had no license and capacity to dispense psychiatric medication, returned the medicines to the DOH.
And now, a year after the controversies involving Herbosa went public, he is again facing fresh criminal and administrative complaints before the Office of the Ombudsman, this time over the alleged P1.5 billion worth of expired medicines and vaccines classified as “dead stock.”
In a 33-page complaint, filed on Tuesday by a group identifying themselves as “concerned Department of Health personnel,” Herbosa, along with 16 other DOH officials, is accused of graft, serious dishonesty, grave misconduct, and conduct prejudicial to public service.
Aside from Herbosa, also named in the complaint were DOH Undersecretaries Randy Escolango and Gloria Balboa; David Masiado, the designated OIC-director for the High Burden Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control Division; Dr. Anna Marie Celina Garfin, director IV; Dr. Adriano Suba-an, director IV at the Population Health and Non-Communicable Diseases Division; Dr. Cherylle Gavino, director III for the Mental Health Division; Dr. Maria Joyce Ducusin, division chief for Children’s Health and Development; Dr. Hardy Dumawing, program manager for family planning; and Dr. Carmela Granada, chief of the Mental Health Division.
Also included were Dr. Jan Derek Junio, program manager for National HIV/AIDS and STI Prevention and Control Program; Dr. Carmina Paz Vera, program manager for the National Immunization Program; Dr. Jessa Joy Malipot and Mark Anthony Dizon, technical officers for procurement management under the Mental Health Division; Liezl Fernandez, technical staff for budget and procurement for the Other Infectious Diseases Prevention, Control and Elimination Division; and Mary Grace Bautista and Jennifer Rabino, both under the Management and Administrative Support Unit.
According to the complainants, the medicines, which were sourced through “high-value contracts for commodities” for family planning and mental health programs, remained stuck in the national warehouse and were not distributed to regional health units, eventually becoming “dead stock.”
Among those cited were expired medicines between December 2025 and March 2026, including Lynestrenol for the family planning program, with 1,200,000 life cycles worth P40 million; Flupentixol Decanoate for the mental health program with 84,490 ampules amounting to P18.9 million; Fluphenazine Decanoate for mental health with 165,115 ampules worth P4.950 million; and Valproic Acid for mental health with 32,005 bottles amounting to P4.1 million.
Vaccines worth P1.319 billion remained undelivered as of Jan. 22, 2026, with some doses for tuberculosis, measles, mumps, and rubella expiring in storage.
Some psychiatric injectables, including 160,000 ampules of Fluphenazine worth P5 million and 80,000 ampules of Flupentixol worth P19 million, also “reached expiration” in February.
Meanwhile, antiretrovirals (Lopinavir/Ritonavir) with more than 1.6 million tablets are nearing expiration.
This despite the fact that the “executive leadership” was said to have been presented a “visual list” of all commodities nearing expiration during an inventory meeting of the Supply Chain Management Service on March 13 this year.
A source said, however, that not all members of the executive committee were informed of the expiring medicines.
Herbosa’s latest case is on top of the graft and violation of the Procurement Law charges brought against him last month, along with three other health officials and employees, for allegedly rigging the procurement of mobile primary care facilities worth P1.8 billion.
This may have something to do with a letter sent by the same “concerned” DOH employees to Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla last December to probe Herbosa’s supposed “close ties” with a health contractor.
The group is seeking preventive suspension of the respondents to prevent further alleged abuse of authority.
But personally, I believe that with all the cases and allegations slapped against Herbosa, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., this time, has to let his health secretary go. For the good of everyone.