MANILA, Philippines — Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) president and CEO Ricardo Morales on Monday said it’s still “premature” to go to President Duterte over the supposed corruption within the state health insurance firm as claimed by presidential spokesperson Harry Roque.
“I think it’s premature to go to the President without resolution,” Morales said in a televised public briefing Monday.
Roque—who previously bared corruption schemes in PhilHealth prior to his return as Duterte’s spokesman—earlier said he would set up a meeting with Duterte and Morales over the alleged unresolved corruption woes in PhilHealth.
Morales, however, insisted that PhilHealth is only suffering from “inefficiencies” in its operation but not from large-scale corruption.
“Meron tayong inefficiencies. Merong maling pasok ng dokumento, mali ang pagfill up ng form, pero walang syndicate colluding to defraud the corporation at that scale,” Morales claimed.
(We have inefficiencies. We have wrongful input of documents, wrongful filing of forms, but there’s no syndicate colluding to defraud the corporation at that scale.)
He also belied claims that some P154 billion were lost to overpayment and fraud, citing a recent findings by the Commission on Audit (COA).
“They (COA) could not substantiate this P154 billion loss in financial statements submitted by PhilHealth from 2013 to 2017. In effect, hindi totoong may nawawalang P154 billion (It’s not true that P154 billion were missing),” Morales said.
The verbal tussle between Roque and Morales stemmed from PhilHealth’s appeal to delay the full implementation of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law, citing its declining revenue amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Roque, who co-authored the UHC when he was still a lawmaker in the lower chamber, said that Philhealth is losing money due to corruption and that halting the implementation of the UHC is unlawful.
Morales fired back, urging Roque to file cases if he has evidence of corruption within the state insurance firm.
Morales was appointed PhilHealth chief after Duterte sought the resignation of then PhilHealth chief Roy Ferrer and six board members following the Inquirer’s three-part investigative report on “ghost dialysis” treatments, overpayments and other fraudulent practices, and a “mafia” behind padded claims.