The Senate Blue Ribbon committee has proposed the abolition of all positions in the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) and their recreation through a law.
“We can authorize the Executive Department to make appointments. This way, all may be replaced by fresh faces, fresh minds and untainted personnel,” said Senator Richard Gordon, chairman of the committee, who noted that a law reorganizing PhilHealth would have to be passed.
In the interim, the senator suggested in his committee report, which has yet to be signed by members of the panel, the removal of all regional directors.
He said the regional PhilHealth officials belong to a “mafia” who should be slapped with graft and corruption charges. He also said the Ombudsman should conduct an investigation into to the possibility of filing plunder charges against the officers responsible in PhilHealth.
In 2019, the Blue Ribbon committee investigated allegations of fraud within PhilHealth.
Gordon came out with the report a year later. He said said it took him a long time to come out with the report due to other issues that needed to be investigated by his committee like the hearings on the controversial Good Conduct and Time Allowance (GCTA) law and the issue on money laundering by Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs).
In an online media briefing, Gordon said the real mafia at Philhealth are the vice presidents, the regional directors. He accused them of allowing millions of overpayments to hospitals in their respective areas.
The committee report showed that the total of overpayments under the all case rate system of PhilHealth amounted to P54.7 million.
“All these overcharges, overpayments, upscaling, and other nefarious schemes could not have been perpetrated without their cooperation, or maybe even, principal leadership,” Gordon said.
“No exemption here. All of them…. they all got (their share),” he said.
Gordon identified in his report the members of the so-called mafia as Paolo Johann Perez, RVP for Mimaropa; lawyer Valerie Anne H. Hollero, assistant corporate secretary; Dennis Adre, RVP for Davao; William Chavez, RVP for Central Visayas; lawyer Jelbert Galicto, RVP for Caraga; Khaliquzzaman Macabato, regional vice president (RVP) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao; Datu Masiding Alonto Jr., RVP for Northern Mindanao and Dr. Miriam Grace Pamonag, RVP for Central Mindanao.
They all denied allegations against them.
But Gordon said the members of the mafia, who have stayed in their positions for 20 to 22 years, had orchestrated the removal of PhilHealth presidents attempting to remove them.
“They are not being replaced and so they were able to wield massive influence,” Gordon said.
In a separate conference, Senator Panfilo Lacson said senators will sign either the committee report of Gordon or the report by the Senate Committee on the Whole, which conducted an inquiry into fresh allegations of corruption at PhilHealth if the two reporters are clashing.
Sotto will report out to the Senate floor the Senate Committee of the Whole findings during the three hearings wherein some of the whistleblowers were among those identified in the Gordon report.
Gordon’s findings countered the testimonies of PhilHealth board member Alejandro Cabading and resigned anti-fraud legal officer Thorrsson Montes Keith, who told Committee of the Whole in a hearing last August the that the PhilHealth executive committee members operated like a syndicate.
Both Cabading and Keith told senators that the regional vice presidents tagged as the “Mindanao group” were actually the “good guys.”
Lacson, a member of Gordon panel, noted that the Senate will be put in a very awkward situation.
“Here the Committee of the Whole has a different angle and theory, contrary and tangential which is directly clashing with the Senate Blue Ribbon findings. So isn’t it a very awkward situation?” said Lacson.
“So I think we’ll have to discuss it in caucus before it is reported out. After all, we will be the one to decide… what committee report are we to sign,” Lacson said.
“But if the two committee reports are contradicting with each other, I cannot see how a senator would sign both,” he added.
Lacson said he will most likely sign the report being prepared by the Committee of the Whole.
“If I would be confronted with two committee reports that are clashing, I will choose one that I would sign. And as of now, my hands down choice is that I would sign the Committee of the Whole report,” he said.
If Gordon had come out with the committee report last year right after the hearings conducted, Lacson said the situation would be different now.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III, meanwhile, said there would be no sacred cows in the Committee of the Whole report.
“Wait for our report. Everybody will be hit,” said Sotto who vowed to report on the Senate floor the findings and recommendations.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon called for a top-to-bottom reorganization of Philhealth even as he welcomed the President’s decision to finally let go of PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Ricardo Morales amid corruption allegations involving the implementation of the interim reimbursement mechanism (IRM).
“It is a welcome development. However, as long as the general structure of the corporation remains the same, corruption will continue,” Drilon said in a statement on Wednesday.
“What PhilHealth needs now is a top-to-bottom cleansing in order to get rid of individuals who used PhilHealth as their personal ATM. In the midst of pandemic, they turned PhilHealth to their personsl bank,” Drilon said.
The minority leader said he proposed to the Committee of the Whole to authorize the President to reorganize PhilHealth.
“The long history of corruption within the corporation, across all levels, may be addressed by passing a law that would authorize the President to reorganize PhilHealth. This reorganization must be accompanied by a well-studied reorganization plan,” Drilon said.
“We need to ensure that only the most competent and honest people are appointed to PhilHealth. Please do not appoint scalawags or people who turn a blind eye to corruption. We need people who have zero tolerance for corruption,” he added.
Drilon said the government should observe the “fit and proper” rule in appointing officials to PhilHealth.
“The officials must be chosen based on their integrity, experience, education, training and competence, among others,” Drilon said.
PhilHealth senior vice president for the legal sector Rodolfo del Rosario Jr. has tendered his irrevocable resignation amid corruption allegations.
In a Facebook post, Del Rosario said he quit his post since the trial by publicity that congressional inquiries on alleged corruption in PhilHealth, coupled with the six-month preventive suspension slapped by the Office of the Ombudsman, put him in so much agony.
“The past days has been so grueling and stressful. The character assassination, trial by publicity, and relentless persecution has left me in so much agony. My six-month suspension was too much to bear,” Del Rosario said in his Facebook post.
PhilHealth has been under several investigations over its questionable release of P15 billion advance payments to hospitals and health care institutions amid COVID-19 of which only P1 billion was accounted for, an allegedly overpriced IT project, and overpayments of reimbursements to hospitals.
“As I cannot afford to be unemployed for the next six months and understanding that the corporation would need and SVP (Senior Vice President) legal in these trying times, I have tendered my irrevocable resignation effective Aug. 24, 2020. This was a painful decision,” Del Rosario added.
A day ahead of the state insurer official’s resignation going public, Undersecretary Markk Perete of the Department of Justice (DOJ)—citing testimony from Del Rosario—said that the PhilHealth board approved the payment of P688 million in late claims despite its being “illegal.”
Perete also said PhilHealth spent double by approving the claims of hospitals that had already been reimbursed in advance under the IRM.
Meanwhile, former PhilHealth president and CEO Alexander Padilla on Tuesday denied allegations that he diverted billions of PhilHealth funds, saying that no such funds existed in the first place.
“This allegation is a brazen lie and has no basis whatsoever,” Padilla said.
“This issue was not even part of that being investigated by the Senate. I was never asked to appear, or say something on the issue, and rightly so because there was no such fund to begin with,” Padilla said.
Earlier, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee recommended the filing of criminal charges against Padilla, former Health Secretary Janette Garin, and former Budget Secretary Florencio Abad for allegedly diverting P10.6 billion to construct barangay health centers and procure dental trucks.
“There is no such fund that was diverted because there was no fund to begin with. This is adequately explained by former DBM Secretary Butch Abad and confirmed by then Secretary DBM Ben Diokno as well,” Padilla said.
Abad has also denied the existence of the funds.
The former secretary said that the P10.6 billion was not included in the 2015 General Appropriations Act.
According to Padilla, the barangay health centers program was the Department of Health’s project alone.
“Relative with the BHC program, PhilHealth has also nothing to do with it. That was a program bid out, procured, implemented, and supervised by DOH alone using their funds. PhilHealth is in no business of funding infrastructure or projects of DOH,” he said.
In 2018, Garin also denied allegations that she requested the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to divert the funds, which were allocated for the expanded Senior Citizens Act.
Meanwhile, in a statement, PhilHealth said they will ask for a copy of the report on the investigation made by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Chaired by Senator Richard Gordon in 2019 “to be fully informed of and guided by their findings and recommendations to improve the administration of the National Health Insurance Progtam.”
Also on Wednesday, a congressional leader on Wednesday called on the Governance Commission on Government-Owned and -Controlled Corporations (GCG) to review the qualifications of officials of the PhilHealth and determine whether they are “good fit” for their posts in the state health insurer.
“Amid the corruption and mismanagement issues hounding PhilHealth, it is only proper that the GCG review the qualifications of its officials to find out if they are compliant with the ‘fit and proper’ rule, meaning they have the integrity, experience, education, training and competence to perform their duties and responsibilities,” Deputy Majority Leader and Bagong Henerasyon Rep. Bernadette Herrera said.
Herrera said “it is for the best interest of the nation and the millions of PhilHealth members to make sure that only the fit and proper, as defined by GCG, are appointed to management posts in the agency.”