PhilHealth’s state of health

BY ROBERT B. ROQUE, JR.

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Officials of the Philippine Health Insurance Corpora­tion (PhilHealth) face another series of legislative inquiries on fresh corruption allega­tions against its officials — for the nth time.

PhilHealth officers may have gotten used to attend­ing congressional probes for various charges over the years. Some of them have been repeatedly accused, quizzed, and charged, but they never learn.

Remember the ghost dialy­sis scandal in 2019, and the P150-billion funds report­edly missing last June? Just how many times have they been subjected to severe congressional grilling, I’ve lost count!

Fraud allegations have con­sistently hounded PhilHealth, and the cycle never ends. Yes, even in this time of the pandemic.

The new revelation came last Thursday, following a heated Zoom meeting among the state agency’s officials.

Soon after, PhilHealth’s anti-fraud officer Thorrsson Montes Keith filed his res­ignation. Two more officers reportedly followed suit, with Keith citing widespread cor­ruption in the agency and other reasons for quitting his post.

After Keith’s resignation, new corruption allegations against PhilHealth surfaced, including the agency’s al­leged overpriced P2-billion information and technology project and its Interim Reim­bursement Mechanism (IRM) meant to support the gov­ernment’s response against COVID-19 crisis.

AnaKalusugan Party-list Representative Mike Defen­sor’s House Committee on Public Accounts would con­duct a motu-proprio investi­gation on these issues.

Senator Panfilo Lacson and Senate President Tito Sotto filed on Monday Senate Reso­lution No. 475 to probe the “alleged rampant corruption, incompetence, and ineffi­ciency” in PhilHealth.

It would include the IRM, through which PhilHealth has the authority to provide special privilege in the form of substantial aid to eligi­ble Health Care Institutions (HCIs).

In a radio interview, Lacson revealed that the agency re­leased P207 million to a few non-accredited hospitals in Region 5 in a matter of two weeks, and another P196 mil­lion to Region 8 in just a week. These occurred while many hospitals with several COVID-19 patients in other regions were pleading for reimburse­ments from PhilHealth.

For this and other corrup­tion allegations that Keith was expected to disclose, Lac­son wanted erring PhilHealth officials jailed this time.

In his two-page letter to PhilHealth President-CEO Ri­cardo Morales dated July 26, he accused the state agency’s chief of being the “coddler or the new leader of the syndi­cate in PhilHealth”.

Aside from these legislative inquiries, Malacanang or­dered the Office of the Special Assistant to the President to investigate the agency’s al­leged overpriced IT project.

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PhilHealth is sick to the bone. Continuing its series of purported fraud schemes during a pandemic is hor­rific. Apparently, it remains infected by the virus called corruption.

Are we only capable of “medicating” PhilHealth to treat the symptoms of cor­ruption? Isn’t there a vaccine that could prevent a recur­rence of this financial and moral virus?

I am eager to see these questions answered in a Sen­ate or House hearing, or in a Palace probe.

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