President Rodrigo Duterte continues to trust Health Secretary Francisco Duque III despite the new corruption allegations against him, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Wednesday.
“He will continue to work as head of the Department of Health and as chair of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases,” Roque said.
He made his statement even as Senator Panfilo Lacson said public health was being imperiled with Duque at the helm of the Health department.
He said Filipinos deserved a good, competent, honest and capable Health secretary and not Duque, and notwithstanding the trust and confidence in him by the person who appointed him.
“Secretary Duque has stayed too long in the Health department as well as in PhilHealth in different capacities,” Lacson said.
He said Filipinos needed a corrupt-free PhilHealth and a competent Health secretary.
Senator Grace Poe said Duque had “failed miserably” in his mandate as shown by the glaring number of unaddressed cyclical corruption in the government health system.
“The numbers will show that you have failed miserably as the head of both PhilHealth and the [Health department],” Poe said.
She said Duque could not feign ignorance about the systemic corruption inside PhilHealth, having been at its helm for 11 years.
But Roque said Duterte had time and again expressed his continuing trust and confidence in Duque, and that Duterte was confident Duque could answer all the allegations against him being studied by the Ombudsman.”
Duque has repeatedly rejected the calls for him to resign as a result of the alleged corruption within PhilHealth and the Health department’s poor handling of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
The allegations against Duque were discussed by former PhilHealth anti-fraud legal officer Thorrsson Montes Keith, who claimed in a Senate hearing that Duque was the “godfather” of the top PhilHealth officials allegedly involved in corruption.
Keith said it was Duque who approved the appointments of the officials belonging to the so-called “mafia” in PhilHealth.
However, Duque, who continues to hang on to his post, dismissed Keith’s allegations as “absolutely malicious” and “without basis.”