Amid ‘carousel of lies,’ Senate ready to come out with findings on PhilHealth probe

MANILA, Philippines — Having had enough of the “carousel of denials and lies,” Senate President Vicente Sotto III said the chamber is ready to come out with its findings on its investigation into allegations of corruption in the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

“I am ready to draft and formulate a comm[ittee] report with recommendations,” Sotto said in a message to reporters.

“We are done with the [c]arousel of denials and lies!..Enough is enough,” he said in a separate message.

Sotto said PhilHealth president and CEO Ricardo Morales “should just appear before DOJ (Department of Justice) together with his [execom] and other officials and later with the Ombudsman.”

Further, the Senate president said he expects the executive department to “do something about them.”

“Short of bringing in the Marines!,” Sotto said.

“Ang hinihintay ko ay magalit si [President Rodrigo Duterte] sa kanila,” he added.

PhilHealth is currently facing separate corruption investigations over the allegedly questionable release of funds through its Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) as well as the planned procurement of “grossly overpriced” IT equipment, among others.

In a Senate hearing last August 4, a resigned PhilHealth anti-fraud officer also alleged that a mafia-like syndicate, which he said is composed of execom members, has pocketed P15 billion through various schemes, including the release of funds through the IRM.

PhilHealth has denied this claim in the “strongest terms.”

Senator Panfilo Lacson said the testimonies and documents presented during the three previous hearings, which all lasted for nearly 10 hours, are “sufficient enough to indict people responsible, directly or otherwise for the systematic corrupt practices and malevolent acts that have practically dragged the PhilHealth to its present financial death bed.”

According to Sotto, the Senate will forward all of its probe findings to the DOJ.

/MUF