Senate President Vicente Sotto III said he is confident that Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) officials tagged as corrupt by a Committee of the Whole report will be indicted.
"I believe that all those whom we recommended… [for] criminal and civil cases will be charged," Sotto said in an interview on Dobol B sa News TV on Sunday.
After three hearings, the Senate proposed the filing of charges against Health Secretary Francisco Duque III who also sits as ex-officio chairman of the PhilHealth board, the agency’s resigned chief Ricardo Morales, and several other top officials.
They were accused of involvement in the "improper and illegal implementation of the interim reimbursement mechanism (IRM)," or the cash advances to health care institutions.
Sotto pointed out the IRM implementation does not have any legal justification as the board resolution concerning it was belatedly adopted on March 31, 2020, while the Circular 2020-0007 was implemented on March 20, 2020.
Duque has said he had no say in the controversial IRM, and that the Senate Committee of the Whole, "made baseless findings on mere allegations alone."
He questioned his inclusion in the charges when he was not even part of the deliberation on IRM and did not even sign the resolution in question.
Although Duque’s signature did not appear in the documents, Sotto however said Duque tolerated the illegal release of funds from the IRM.
Sotto said this was the reason Duque should be slapped with criminal charges, among them graft and corruption and technical malversation.
“Through abandonment or negligence, you knew billions were released,” Sotto said of Duque, adding that it would be impossible for the Health secretary not to know this was irregular.
By saying he had no hand in implementing the IRM, Duque is practically pleading guilty to malversation by way of negligence under the Revised Penal Code, Sotto said.
He also said President Rodrigo Duterte's continued trust in Duque should not stop the Department of Justice from filing charges against him.
The Senate leader also said they stand by their recommendation for the President to appoint a new DOH secretary.
He said the successor of Duque should be an officer who has a strong will to fight corruption inside PhilHealth and the other agencies under the country’s health insurer.
Earlier, the senators passed a resolution demanding the resignation of Duque over his failure of leadership and allegations of corruption hounding PhilHealth.
Meanwhile, House ways and means committee chairman Joey Sarte Salceda (Albay, 2nd district) has filed a bill in Congress that seeks to overhaul the main segments of PhilHealth's operations to “fully fund universal health care and root out corruption and mismanagement in the agency PhilHealth.”
Under his PhilHealth Reform Act of 2020 (HB 7578), Salceda said overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) will no longer have to pay PhilHealth premiums since they don’t earn their income in the country and do not use its services, and and low income earners will save about P4,800 in yearly contributions.
The lawmaker said the bill incorporates the recommendations contained in a 33-page aide memoire he recently submitted to the House leadership and members of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases, to solve the PhilHealth crisis.
Salceda said his proposed reforms are both structural and anti-fraud. Under his bill, the premium contribution scheme is made more progressive, linking income tax rate with premium contribution. Minimum wage earners who are exempt from income taxes will only pay P100 minimum contributions monthly, down from around P250-500 per month under the current system.
The bill also reforms the PhilHealth governance structure and makes the secretary of Finance as its board chairman, since PhilHealth is an insurance and investment agency, and a financial company.
The bill also requires an independent audit of PhilHealth, apart from those conducted by the Commission on Audit, and mandates the PhilHealth president to report to the President of the Philippines and to Congress measures taken to address adverse audit findings.
