Excuse us from hearing
top officials of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) have asked the Senate to excuse them from attending an August 11 panel hearing on the corruption allegations hurled against them for medical reasons.
This comes as another official of the scandal-hit agency asked for parliamentary immunity when he testifies at the Senate Committee on the Whole hearing after he and resigned PhilHealth antifraud officer Thorrsson Montes Keith, who first raised the allegations, were threatened with legal action.
In a medical certificate obtained by The
ManilaTimes on Saturday, Cardinal Santos Medical Center oncologist Maria Luisa Tiambeng said she had advised PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Ricardo Morales to “take a leave of absence” from work, as it is “in his best interest.”
According to her, the 67-year-old Morales has a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma — a type of cancer that affects the lymph nodes — and is advised to complete six cycles of chemotherapy.
This is the first time the retired army general’s condition was confirmed publicly. He earlier told the public that he would respond to the allegations at the proper forum.
In a letter to Senate President Vicente
Sotto 3rd, PhilHealth Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Arnel de Jesus also asked permission to excuse himself from the hearing because of an “unforeseen medical emergency.”
A medical certificate also obtained by TheManilaTimes listed his ailments, including acute coronary syndrome, heart disease and diabetes.
De Jesus promised that he would be available to testify once his health improves.
Asked to comment, Shirley Domingo, PhilHealth vice president for corporate affairs, told TheManila
Times she knew nothing of the documents the two officials submitted.
In an interview on CNN Philippines on Saturday, Domingo said the state health insurer welcomed investigations into such allegations, “paramabigaypoang (so that the) side of PhillHealth in these corruption issues.”
Her remarks come a day after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the Department of Justice to form an interagency task force to probe claims of systemic corruption in the state health insurer.
The claims included pricing irregularities in PhilHealth’s PR.1-billion information technology (IT) project and senior officials pocketing P15 billion from the Interim Reimbursement Mechanism program.
The agency has denied these allegations, adding that the findings of an internal audit report on the IT project only showed “discrepancies,” not overpricing.
Also on Saturday, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said in an interview on Radio DWIZ that PhilHealth Board Member Alejandro Cabading had sent a letter to Sotto requesting immunity for him and Keith. “Magmo- move akoparamagrant sila ng legislative immunity nang sa ganoon [ magiging] freewheeling angkanilang testimony, lalo[pang]maybantana
ganyan. (I will move to grant them legislative inquiry, so that their testimony would be freewheeling, especially when they are threatened with lawsuits),” Lacson said.
On Morales and de Jesus’ possible absence at Tuesday’s hearing, the former police chief-turned-lawmaker said that would be their loss, not the Senate’s loss, as they wouldn’t be able to “respond to new issues [that] the resource persons [would raise] and [to] some new incriminating documents in our possession.”
“We may never be able to explain the persistence of corruption in PhilHealth because greed knows no logic,” he added.
Despite this, Lacson said he joined Morales’ “family in praying for his recovery.”
“It is unfortunate that these new corruption issues have exploded at a time when his health…is at its low point,” he added.
Also during the interview, Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go wished that Morales “get well soon.”
He said he was optimistic that the PhilHealth chief would cooperate and “tell all,” since he himself had admitted that there were problems at his agency.