‘No foot-dragging in case vs Arroyo’

MANILA, Philippines—The Office of the Ombudsman said it did not drag its feet on a plunder complaint filed by former Solicitor General Francisco Chavez against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and members of her Cabinet over the alleged misuse of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) health insurance fund.

In a statement, Assistant Ombudsman Evelyn Baliton said they investigated the matter and found no irregularities in the use of the OWWA funds.

She said Chavez and the other parties involved in the case were given a copy of the Ombudsman’s Field Investigation Office (OMB-FIO) report in October 2007.

Aside from Arroyo, the respondents in the case were former OWWA administrator Virgilio Angelo, former Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, and former Executive Secretary and Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo.

Chavez, who filed the complaint in 2004, had argued that the transfer of OWWA’s health insurance fund to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) was illegal.

Chavez claimed P554 million in OWWA funds were used by Arroyo from March 2003 to February 2004 to buy and distribute PhilHealth cards to boost her campaign in the 2004 presidential election.

He accused Romulo of “misappropriating” P5 million in OWWA funds for the operating expenses of the Philippine humanitarian assistance group to Iraq.

Romulo, he charged, also asked for the release of $293,500 to finance the “preparatory activities” of the Philippine mission to Kuwait, the purchase of vehicles and the “stockpiling” of supplies in Lebanon, Jordan, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt and Iran in support of the US-led war in Iraq.

Chavez said Arroyo granted Romulo’s requests and in her marginal notes directed that the funds be sourced from OWWA.

But the Ombudsman’s 18-page report concluded that there was not enough evidence to show that the officials had misused the funds, which totaled P530 million, the Ombudsman said.

“(I)nvestigation conducted by the OMB-FIO revealed that there was no actual transfer of the overseas Filipino workers’ medicare funds from the OWWA to the PHIC, as attested to by the Commission on Audit resident auditor of OWWA,” the statement said.

Duque and Angelo have denied any wrongdoing in the handover of the medicare funds to PhilHealth.

According to Duque, the transfer of funds to PhilHealth was backed by executive orders from the President and the Department of Justice.

They justified the OWWA-PhilHealth tieup, saying that the overseas welfare authority did not have the infrastructure and capacity to provide insurance to its members.

Duque said the money was not used for electioneering.

He also said the funds were forwarded to PhilHealth in 2005, and presented checks that showed the funds were transferred in March and April 2005.

As for the accusation against Romulo, the Ombudsman said it did not find anything wrong with the use of OWWA funds for the government’s operations in war-torn Iraq.

It said the use of the money was allowed by a memorandum of agreement between the DFA and the Department of Labor and Employment. They had agreed to set aside a contingency fund for “an effective response mechanism for the possible relocation and repatriation of Filipino workers in the areas covered by the conflict in the Middle East.”