Duque questions propriety of waiving PhilHealth claims

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III has questioned the propriety of former health chief Janette Garin’s waiving the claim of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to the P10.69-billion fund, which he said could been used to extend the actuarial life of PhilHealth.

Garin and former PhilHealth president Alex Padilla sent a letter to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in August 2015, waiving PhilHealth’s claim to the multibillionpeso budget.

The budget was meant for the senior citizens’ contribution.

“I repeat, the impropriety of writing a letter by former secretary Garin and former PhilHealth president Alex Padilla, saying that the (funds) are no longer needed,” Duque said in an interview with the pro- gram The Chiefs on Cignal TV’s One News channel last Thursday night.

Duque also said the letter had no approval of the PhilHealth board and had no actuarial certification that the money was really no longer needed.

“That’s a huge amount of money that, if they had allowed the earmarking of that amount, would have improved the actuarial life of PhilHealth by around one and a half years,” he said.

The budget would have also increased PhilHealth’s reserved funds by at least 10 to 15 percent. “Sayang yung P10.8 billion (That P10.8 billion was wasted),” Duque said.

“Attorney Padilla wrote a letter sometime Feb. 16, saying ‘give us back, we need the premium contributions subsidy for the senior.’ So there’s now an acknowledgement that they needed the money,” he added.