14/07/2026
EDITORIAL
STRONG INSIGHTS: Herbosa’s Exit: A Test of Accountability Under Marcos!
The resignation of Ted Herbosa as Secretary of Health is more than another Cabinet change. It comes amid complaints and controversies that have placed the leadership, financial management, and governance of the Department of Health under public scrutiny.
The central question is not simply why Herbosa left. His departure tests whether the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. uses Cabinet changes to enforce accountability and institutional reform or merely replaces officials while deeper weaknesses remain unresolved.
During Herbosa’s tenure, complaints were filed before the Office of the Ombudsman involving allegations related to procurement, financial management, potential conflicts of interest, administrative conduct, and the use of public funds. These included controversies involving government-funded travel, medicines, mobile primary care facilities, cash transfers for vaccines and essential medicines, and the media activities of senior DOH officials.
Herbosa denied wrongdoing and described some allegations as part of a “demolition job” by groups within the department with their own interests.
Filing a complaint does not establish guilt. Due process requires independent investigation, credible evidence, and fair adjudication. But democratic accountability does not begin and end with criminal conviction.
A Cabinet secretary may not have been found guilty of an offense but can still become politically accountable when repeated controversies weaken public confidence, consume the President’s political capital, and raise serious questions about the governance of a major department.
Herbosa’s departure must therefore be examined within a larger pattern. Since Marcos assumed office in 2022, several department secretaries have resigned, been replaced, transferred, or temporarily served in acting capacities. After the 2025 midterm elections, Marcos directed all Cabinet secretaries to submit courtesy resignations as part of what the administration described as a recalibration of government performance and direction.
Cabinet reshuffles are legitimate instruments of presidential leadership. The problem begins when personnel changes become substitutes for institutional accountability. If officials leave without transparent performance assessments, pending controversies disappear from public attention, and no reforms follow, reshuffles merely change the people managing government without correcting the weaknesses that produced the problems.
This concern becomes more significant because of the administration’s reliance on temporary appointments.
In March 2026, Senator Imee Marcos publicly identified nine Cabinet-level officials whose appointment papers, according to her, had not been submitted to the Commission on Appointments. Not all nine were department secretaries, and the figure should not be treated as the current number of acting Cabinet secretaries. But the episode raised an important question: how long should officials exercising Cabinet-level authority remain outside the regular confirmation process?
Acting appointments are legal and sometimes necessary to prevent leadership vacuums. But prolonged reliance on acting officials may delay or reduce the opportunity of the Commission on Appointments to exercise its confirmation function.
Under the 1987 Constitution, permanent heads of executive departments are appointed by the President with the consent of the Commission on Appointments. Confirmation allows scrutiny of qualifications, track records, possible conflicts of interest, and fitness to manage departments controlling enormous bureaucracies and billions of pesos in public funds.
An acting secretary may exercise substantial executive authority while temporary status postpones the scrutiny required for permanent appointment. Congress retains oversight through budget hearings and legislative investigations, but these do not fully replace the constitutional confirmation process.
Repeated Cabinet turnover and prolonged temporary leadership can also weaken policy continuity, institutional memory, bureaucratic discipline, and long-term reform. This brings the issue directly to presidential responsibility.
Cabinet secretaries are alter egos of the President. He selects them, supervises them, evaluates their performance, and decides whether they remain in office. Repeated controversies involving Cabinet officials therefore cannot always be treated as isolated failures of individual secretaries.
They also raise questions about the administration’s system for selecting appointees, monitoring performance, enforcing internal controls, and ensuring that leadership changes produce institutional improvement.
The controversy over Herbosa’s reported US$10 million pledge to the World Health Organization illustrates the broader issue. No final official determination has established that the pledge was illegal. But questions over legal authority, funding sources, approval procedures, transparency, and public benefit demonstrate why major financial commitments require clear institutional accountability.
Herbosa also received support from an association representing more than 53,000 DOH workers, which recognized his leadership and programs including PuroKalusugan, BUCAS, and the Zero Balance Billing policy.
This makes his record more complex. Public officials can implement valuable programs while still facing legitimate questions about governance. Performance cannot substitute for accountability, just as allegations cannot substitute for evidence.
The greater test now belongs to the Marcos administration.
If investigations continue, findings are disclosed, institutional weaknesses are corrected, qualified permanent department heads undergo constitutional scrutiny, and officials are held accountable where evidence warrants, Herbosa’s departure can become an opportunity for reform.
The true measure is not who replaces the Secretary. It is whether the questions are answered, institutions are strengthened, and the administration demonstrates that Cabinet turnover is part of a credible system of accountability.
If the names change but the governance does not, it is not reform.
It is political damage control.
By Strong Doy Danlag
JULY 14, 2026
