Drilon eager to grill Duque on PhilHealth corruption
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Sunday said he is looking forward to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III’s participation in the Senate’s hearing on the alleged corruption and irregularities at the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth)
Drilon said he wants to know what the Health chief has laid out to stamp out corruption in the State health insurance agency.
The Department of Health (DOH) chief had earlier said he will attend the third Senate hearing set on Tuesday, amid lawmakers’ question over his “silence” on the issues hounding the PhilHealth.
“Unang-una, ano ba ang ginawa niya? Ang PhilHealth ay nasa ilalim ng DOH. Siya ang chairman ng PhilHealth (In the first place, what did he do? PhilHealth is under the supervision of DOH. He is the chairman of PhilHealth),” Drilon said in an interview over GMANewsTV.
“Matagal na ang anomaly. Ano ba ang hakbang na ginawa niya para mabawasan man kung hindi man mapigil? Galit na ang taumbayan (The anomaly has been going on for years. What measures did he impose to curb these if not stop? The people are fuming),” he added.
“Ito ay para sa health sector. Ang laki ng pera na inilalagay ngunit ang serbisyo na ibinibigay ay kulang (This is for the health sector. So much money has been poured into PhilHealth but their service is lacking),” he said.
Duque had been PhilHealth president from 2001 to 2005 during the time of the Arroyo administration and later on became DOH Secretary from 2005 to 2009.
He was chair of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and member of the PhilHealth board from 2010 to 2015 and subsequently came back as DOH Secretary after he was appointed to the Cabinet position by President Duterte.
Under his leadership, the Commission on Audit (COA) had flagged several questionable projects in PhilHealth, which had led the Senate to investigate these anomalies.
The Senate, constituting itself as a Committee of the Whole, reopened its Senate inquiry into the alleged irregularities in PhilHealth after several of its officials resigned due to the perceived rampant corruption within the agency.
Senators are now particularly keen on PhilHealth’s implementation of the Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) scheme which turned out to be a cash advance program for hospitals and clinics directly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lawmakers, however, noted how the IRM was abused and became a source of politicking and corruption in the agency. On Friday last week, PhilHealth suspended its implementation.