MANILA, Philippines — The Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) has finished with its partial investigation into the alleged corruption inside the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), said PACC Commissioner Greco Belgica.
During the Laging Handa online press briefing on Saturday, Belgica said the anti-corruption body will submit its investigation and a list of partial recommendations by Monday.
“Natapos na po ang aming partial report…meron na rin pong partial recommendation po dun. Partial kasi po kailangan it will be for further investigation so maasahan natin na dadagdag ang listahan ng makikita natin,” he said.
(Our partial report is done, we also included their our partial recommendations. Partial because we need it for further investigation, so expect that there will be more things added.)
According to Belgica, the anti-corruption body has seen “loopholes” in PhilHealth’s systems, and have identified officials who are possibly involved in corruption.
This comes after “deep corruption” was exposed in the state’s health insurer, which forced three officials to resign.
Among those who resigned, former anti-fraud legal officer Thorrsson Montes Keith, even tagged PhilHealth president Ricardo Morales as the “coddler or may have been the new leader of the syndicate” who is preying on the premiums paid by the insurer.
Meanwhile, Belgica said PhilHealth has issues with their IT (information technology) and legal services.
“”Basically IT ang issue. Malaking issue rito po ‘yung IT nila. And then ‘yung legal services po nila dahil supposedly nakikita ito, nadidiskubre. Kasi hindi naman ito mga bagong issues eh, these are recurring issues na iba-iba lang ang cases na hindi nahuhuli. Meron mga defect po dun,” he said.
(Basically IT is the issue. This is a big issue. And then their legal services because supposedly we see it. These are not new issues, these are just recurring issues that have new cases and are not being caught. There really is a defect there)
The PACC Commissioner, however, said that he does not want to pre-empt the investigation and decision of President Rodrigo Duterte.