MANILA, Philippines — The Senate is “keeping its options open” and may file its own charges against officials of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) over the Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) that provided emergency cash advances for medical facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson said on Sunday.
“We’re keeping our options open. Pwede kami mag-initiate ng pag-file ng kaso sa mga taong hindi naisama ng task force,” Lacson said in an interview over radio station DZBB.
(We can initiate the filing of charges against those who were not included by the task force.)
Lacson was referring to Task Force PhilHealth, which was headed by Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Menardo Guevarra.
“Wala namang magpe-prevent sa amin kung dudulog kami sa Ombudsman bilang isang body, bilang Senado o bilang Kongreso kung sasama ang House of Representatives kasi sila mismo nagsagawa rin ng malawakang investigation,” he added.
(There’s no one preventing us from going to the Ombudsman as one body, as a Senate or even as Congress if the House of Representatives will join us since they are conducting their own investigation.)
It was on Friday when the National Bureau of Investigation, with the endorsement of the DOJ, to file a string of criminal complaints against nine former and current PhilHealth officials—including former PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Ricardo Morales—over the alleged misuse of the IRM.
Some of the P30-billion IRM funds were allegedly released to hospitals that had not treated COVID-19 patients, for which the emergency measure was intended.
Guevarra also said that more complaints will be filed in the next few days or weeks against the erring PhilHealth officials.
However, in the report by the Senate Committee of the Whole which initiated its own investigation on the alleged anomalies inside PhilHealth, it recommended the filing of charges of several PhilHealth officials, including Department of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and resigned Philhealth SVP for legal sector Rodolfo Del Rosario.
Duque serves as the ex-officio chairman of PhilHealth.
Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, who chairs the Senate committee, previously said that he was “dumbfounded” that the task force did not recommend the filing of charges against Duque.
Lacson, meanwhile, said that despite the non-inclusion of Duque and Del Rosario, there may be a possibility that they may be included in the next wave of charges as the task force is not yet done with its investigation.
“Baka sa second phase ng investigation masama kasi may pahayag sila na itutuloy-tuloy nila,” Lacson said.
(They may be included in the second phase of investigation because they said that they will still continue it.)
The senator added that based on “inside information” shared to him by Sotto, there is evidence implicating Duque and Del Rosario in the alleged irregularities.
“So mas mabuti hintayin namin ‘yan kesa sa pwede kami magsalita na kapos o kulang ang nirekomenda ng DOJ pero kung hindi pa tapos ang investigation, we might be speaking too soon,” he said.
(So it’s better to wait for the DOJ to speak rather than say that the DOJ’s recommendation is lacking. But if the investigation is not done, we might be speaking too soon.)