Fixing the government does not just involve using public funds properly but also needs the right people in the right positions to properly execute the tasks expected of them, Partido Reporma chairman and standard bearer Panfilo “Ping” Lacson said Wednesday.
Lacson said skills matching is a must for competent government officials serving with him once he is elected President after the 2022 national elections.
“We really have a problem. We just appoint anyone who doesn’t really fit the position, skills and talent-wise, so that’s a real problem,” he said.
The veteran senator cited as an example the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), the state health insurer which has a doctor, in the person of the Health Secretary, as its ex-officio chairman.
“Why is the ex-officio chairman a doctor? Shouldn’t you put in charge of PhilHealth a finance officer under the Department of Finance, then appoint people who know financial work, because it is an insurance company?” he said.
Just this week, Lacson noted several private hospital partners of PhilHealth have left the state insurer owing to billions of pesos in unpaid claims.
Making things worse for PhilHealth, Lacsomn said, is that its current head, lawyer Dante Gierran, is a career law enforcer who came from the National Bureau of Investigation.
“You appoint a law enforcer from the NBI in charge? That’s what’s happening with our government, we have no skills matching,” he said.
