Aubrey Rose Inosante - The Philippine Star
October 21, 2026 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — She still lacks name recall, does not belong to a political dynasty and does not have billions to spend.
But former finance undersecretary Cielo Magno is hoping that Filipinos are ready for a “disruptor” who need not rely on patronage politics, and who can offer solutions to seemingly intractable problems faced by the nation.
“I’m here not to become a part of traditional politics. I’m here to disrupt,” she told The STAR’s online show “Truth on the Line” on Monday. “I don’t have to win to do that, but I want to use the election platform.”
A professor of public finance and institutional and health economics at the University of the Philippines School of Economics in Diliman, Magno is aware of the challenges ahead for a relative unknown like her aspiring for a national post.
But she said she wanted to elevate the level of public discourse on raging issues, going into an election year.
She is pinning her hopes on youths, who have been inviting her to deliver speeches.
At a recent meething with Filipinos in Milan, Italy, Magno, responding to a question, said she would seek a Senate seat in 2028.
Healthcare reforms, education, industrial policy for job generation and improved food security are among her priorities.
Magno has long been known as an advocate of judicious budgeting and utilization of public funds.
Among other things, she is also pitching for free medicine and expanded zero-balance billing in all public hospitals as part of her “ambitious” bid for a Senate seat in the 2028 elections.
If elected, she said among her priorities would be strengthening the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) and focusing on taxation and budget.
“Include coverage of medicine so that it can be free. Zero-balance billing should be expanded in all public hospitals and improve access to primary health care or check-ups,” she said.
Implemented by the Department of Health, the zero-balance billing program ensures eligible patients and PhilHealth members admitted to participating government hospitals can receive covered health
services with minimal or no remaining hospital bill, subject to rules.
Magno said this proposal would be possible by transferring the allocation and operations of the Medical Assistance to Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (MAIFIP) program to PhilHealth.
“Let PhilHealth administer it. So that the zero-balance billing, not just in a few hospitals, but we can do it in all public hospitals,” she said while calling on Congress to give an adequate budget for the state insurer.
PhilHealth needs more than P200 billion to operationalize and give promised benefits as the government initially proposed P74.45 billion for next year, which can run out by March, she said.
Magno’s proposal echoes concerns raised earlier by the Health Professionals Alliance Against COVID-19 over PhilHealth’s chronic underfunding and lawmakers’ reliance on discretionary medical assistance, including MAIFIP, which critics say can be used for political patronage.
“Why do we need to make it difficult for people to go to politicians just to get the services that we have already paid the premium through our tax to PhilHealth?” she said.
In addition, Magno, whose research includes mining, urged the government to establish a clear industrial policy to ensure the Philippines benefits from investments under the US-led Pax Silica initiative.
She questioned whether the government had set conditions to ensure local industries would benefit from the investments.
“It will only become an opportunity for Filipino people if we have a clear vision, if we have a clear strategy to ensure that Pax Silica will be beneficial to us. But we don’t have a clear industrial policy framework that we can use to ensure that we will benefit from this,” she said.
“It’s like we just offered this land, a free lease and you come here. But how do we benefit from that? It’s not clear to me,” Magno added.