Minority lawmakers urge overhaul of PhilHealth
MANILA, Philippines — Minority lawmakers on Wednesday urged Malacañang to undertake a “massive cleansing” in the Philippine Health Insurance System Corp. (PhilHealth) to rid the agency of the scam that has bled its funds dry for years.
In a press briefing, Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin described the corrupt officials in the PhilHealth as the “biggest mosquitoes,” whose uncrupulous practices have reportedly infected other honest personnel in the agency.
“[Corruption] will not end if we do not nip it in the bud, if the present health secretary will continue to play blind and deaf to all these allegations of irregularities,” she said.
The House minority vowed to call for an investigation into the alleged anomalies uncovered at PhilHealth, including fraudulent claims, as well as supposed corruption in the accreditation of hospitals.
Garin, a former health secretary, lamented that the policy reforms her administration had instituted at PhilHealth were “overturned,” supposedly allowing the fraudulent practices to return in 2017.
“We are calling on the present PhilHealth administration to reinstate those policies that will curb corruption, and to stop the harassment of whistleblowers from within the agency,” she said.
Magsasaka Rep. Argel Joseph Cabatbat asked the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation to provide security fraud investigators who are often tasked to probe and prosecute irregularities within the state insurance firm.
Cabatbat survived an ambush along Edsa in 2018, while acting as counsel for one of the complainants against a doctor who was implicated in a scam involving PhilHealth claims.
“We have had reports that many witnesses have been harassed to discourage them from testifying,” he said.
Marikina Rep. Estella Luz Quimbo meanwhile warned that government’s failure to check irregularities within PhilHealth will derail the objectives of the Universal Health Care (UHC) law.
Quimbo said the UHC was contingent on the implementation of much-needed reforms in PhilHealth, as there were currently many obstacles in the agency’s effective delivery of financial risk protection.
“Properly implemented, the UHC could benefit over 100 million Filipinos, especially those who cannot afford proper health care,” she said.
