Roque eyes new raps vs PhilHealth

FORMER Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque on Tuesday said he is preparing to file another case against officials of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) officials for allegedly paying benefits to “ghost beneficiaries.”

Roque earlier filed graft cases against former and current PhilHealth officials over alleged irregularities involving P90-million government funds.

According to Roque, the “pertinent documents” which PhilHealth failed to release will help build up the charges he filed against the health agency.

He added that he sought help from President Duterte in case

PhilHealth refuses to release documents. “Minabuti ko nang dumiretso sa ating Presidente para i-release na ang mga dokumento [I went straight to President Duterte to ask if he could help with the documents].”

Roque will be filing a dereliction of duty case against PhilHealth.

“There were fake receipts issued by the agency to OFWs. To be honest, I can’t keep track of our losses because of the fake receipts,” Roque said in a mix of English and Filipino.

“I pity our OFWs for thinking that they are still covered by PhilHealth,” he added.

In June, PhilHealth denied that its liaison officers released fake official receipts. “The falsification was initiated by the unscrupulous liaison officers themselves who were said to connive with a certain personality at the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration [POEA] in order to commit fraud,” the statement read.

The former Palace spokesman also pushed for the Whistleblower Protection Act which seeks to support the prosecution of errant and corrupt public officials.

Roque called on PhilHealth’s legal department to “support whistleblowers instead of putting them behind bars.”

Whistle-blower Edwin Roberto, who has submitted his sworn affidavit against the health agency, was arrested by the National Bureau of

Investigation (NBI) earlier in October.

According to the NBI’s complaint, Roberto had falsely narrated in his sworn affidavit that on March 30, 2016, the owner of a dialysis center he had worked for ordered him “to try to charge a dialysis billing amounting to P2,600 to PhilHealth claims of dead individuals.”

Roberto said that the government must strengthen and “widen the scope” of its witness protection program.

“We do not ask anything from the government—if this is how whistle-blowers are treated in the country, I doubt that you’ll see more of us,” Roberto said in Filipino.