PhilHealth execs ramp up defense
TOP executives of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) on Thursday stepped up their defense against accusations that the agency is riddled with corruption.
In a virtual conference Thursday, PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Ricardo Morales and members of his executive team denied the allegations that irregularities have driven the state health insurer to the brink of bankruptcy.
“I have no reason to doubt the people working at PhilHealth,” Morales stressed.
During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, PhilHealth’s former anti-fraud officer Thorrsson Keith claimed that Morales had ordered the funds released by PhilHealth through the Interim Reimbursement Mechanism ( IRM) program exempted from liquidation, and to not release an internal audit report that said its information technology project was riddled with fraud.
Morales said fraud was nothing new in an agency like PhilHealth, and that its problems have become systemic.
PhilHealth Senior Vice President for Fund Management Renato Limsiaco Jr. assured the public the insurer has P216 billion in cash and assets, enough to allow it to continue servicing the public.
Jovita Aragona, the PhilHealth vice president implicated in the IT project issue, said the internal audit report failed to find any anomaly.
What turned up were discrepancies from the price estimates to the standard market canvassing, which will not be used once the bidding begins for the project, Aragona said.
She said the Department of Information and Communications Technology still has to approve the P2.1-billion project.
Morales confirmed the resignation of Senior Vice President Augustus de Villa, who was implicated in the procurement of network switches.
He said de Villa told him he quit because he wanted to spend more time with his family.
He said contrary to Keith’s allegations, the IRM funds were still subject to liquidation.
“The PhilHealth regional offices have been given the flexibility in the timing of liquidations recognizing the situations in each hospital,” Morales said.
He added that Keith’s claims were not substantiated by evidence and was meant to malign officers that frustrated his ambitions for a higher position.
Morales said the Philippine Hospitals Association supported the release of the IRM, which enabled hospitals to cope with the rise in coronavirus cases.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, meanwhile, dared PhilHealth officials implicated in irregularities to declare a “moratorium” on corruption, at least during the pandemic.
Lacson also asked President Rodrigo Duterte to look at what transpired at the Senate inquiry on PhilHealth to help him decide whether to retain Morales.
Lacson earlier noted that the President had warned that he will fire any government official found to be involved in “just a whiff of corruption.”
He said recent developments gave the public “a sneak peek” into the extent of corruption at PhilHealth.
“Who knows, they might actually learn that it feels good not to be corrupt, and thus develop an aversion to corruption,” Lacson said in a statement.
Gabriela party- list Rep. Arlene Brosas also dared Duterte to sack Morales.
“In the first place, what is his background when it is needed, especially in PhilHealth...you need to have a finance background, you need to be a health expert,” Brosas said.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd said PhilHealth’s problems must be fixed before the Department of Finance (DoF) could determine the size of its fund.
During a joint press conference of the members of the Development Budget Coordination Committee on Thursday, Dominguez was asked if the government would be willing to rescue the health insurance firm.
PhilHealth officials had warned it could run out of funds by 2022 if collections do not improve.
“Since October of last year, the DoF has been in meetings with the PhilHealth and we told them that the current state of their information system does not allow us to actually make secure projections on their fund life because their information system — I’ve used this term publicly — is in shambles,” Dominguez said.
“Despite spending close to P200 billion to improve its IT system, it is still not robust enough to capture all its data. Yet it is asking for another P21 billion to run the system,” he said.
“So, we are saying they have to improve their information system so we can make not only a one-year projection, but a 10-year projection for PhilHealth,” Dominguez said.
So far this year, PhilHealth has received P26.17 billion in subsidies.