INTRODUCTION:
“ Surgery for All” as espoused by the Philippine College of Surgeons compels a more in-depth analysis of surgical care in the Philippines. Decongestion of tertiary hospitals capable of essential surgical procedures is prompted through relocation to secondary or ambulatory surgical centers. Further discourse should be encouraged with stakeholders to determine the list of essential surgeries in the Philippine context. This study will investigated the capacity of non-Level 3 hospitals to provide essential surgical procedures, through utilizing a health systems framework approach.

METHODS:
This will be a scoping study of the capability of all non-Level 3 hospitals in the Philippines. This study utilized secondary data of The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (Philhealth) claims from 2022-2024. Results and discussion There were a total of 1202 combined government and private-owned non level 3 hospitals in the 18 regions of the Philippines. All hospitals included in the analysis were able to claim reimbursements for rendering essential surgical care procedures like cesarian section and laparotomy. Regions in the east have less surgical service delivery compared to the regions in the west. This might be because oof typhoon or more challenging landscape/terrain. There is a clear and persistent divide in which level of institution handles the majority of surgical claims, varying significantly by region. Level 2 institutions consistently dominate in major urban centers like NCR (53.30% in 2024) and Region 7 (63.05% in 2024), whereas Level 1 facilities are the primary providers in regions such as Region 8 (73.03% in 2024) and Region 2 (58.51% in 2024).

CONCLUSIONS:
While the challenges of surgical service access in the Philippines persist because of surgical manpower maldistribution and urban-centrism, this study proves that essential surgical procedures are rendered in more-peripherally located and resource-limited hospitals (non-level 3)in the Philippines.