Senate hearing finds enough evidence to file charges vs. PhilHealth officials

Senators said they already gathered enough evidence from the Senate hearing on the alleged widespread corruption at Philippine Health Insurance Corp (PhilHealth) to file charges against the agency’s president Ricardo Morales and other officials.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senator Panfilo Lacson said in separate interviews that there is growing evidence that Morales and other officials should be held responsible for the alleged corruption based on the first hearing last Tuesday.

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The senators said the investigation would continue next week to identify as many individuals that could have been involved in the irregularities in PhilHealth.

“I think I’ll still give (Morales) the benefit of the doubt because there’s still this possibility that he’s being duped by his people, who do not give him accurate information. He might be blind-sided too,” Sotto told reporters in a video conference.

Sotto said Morales’ request to have a closed-door session for him to explain the allegations was denied.

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He added Morales should “come out clean and tell all he knows” in the scheduled hearing next week.

“Name names, and I’ll grant (an executive session) immediately, but if he insists on evading or trying to cover up and protect some people, then we will be judgmental,” Sotto added.

The Senate President hoped President Rodrigo Duterte would heed their recommendations to overhaul PhilHealth, which includes reshuffling and firing its corrupt officials.

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Also read: Palace: Duterte to keep PhilHealth chief unless there’s evidence of corruption

The Senate hearing is currently investigating at least two alleged cases of corruption inside PhilHealth. First is the Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM), where PhilHealth officials allegedly gave hundreds of millions of pesos to some favored hospitals, dialysis centers, and maternity clinics in Manila, Bicol, and the Visayas even if some of the facilities do not have COVID-19 cases.

The second is the alleged P2.1-billion overpriced information and communications technology (ICT) equipment budget.

Alejandro Cabading, a certified public accountant and a part of Philhealth’s board of directors, said the budget proposal was unusual because the price of several items was 400 times higher than the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has approved.

The proposal also items with questionable prices, such as two sets of laptops with one costing P4.11 million, while another worth P115.32 million.