{"id":227492,"date":"2019-08-19T21:30:20","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T01:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=227492"},"modified":"2019-08-19T21:30:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T01:30:20","slug":"call-to-abolish-philhealth-should-be-addressed-to-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/08\/19\/call-to-abolish-philhealth-should-be-addressed-to-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Call to abolish PhilHealth should be addressed to Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_222653\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-222653\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Panelo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-222653\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Panelo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Panelo.jpg 960w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Panelo-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-222653\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo made this remark after Roque, who is a lawyer for two whistleblowers of the ghost dialysis scheme in PhilHealth, suggested to abolish PhilHealth and instead create a new agency to implement the government\u2019s Universal Health Care program. (File <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PresSpokespersonPH\/photos\/a.397841807217544\/758497261151995\/?type=3&amp;amp;theater\">photo:<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PresSpokespersonPH\/\">Office of the Presidential Spokesperson\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0&#8212; Former Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque\u2019s suggestion to abolish the Philippine Health Insurance (PhilHealth) should be addressed to Congress, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo made this remark after Roque, who is a lawyer for two whistleblowers of the ghost dialysis scheme in PhilHealth, suggested to abolish PhilHealth and instead create a new agency to implement the government\u2019s Universal Health Care program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf he wants it abolished, then address it to Congress,\u201d Panelo said in a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n<p>Panelo urged Roque to file appropriate charges against former and current PhilHealth officials if he believed they were involved in corruption within the agency.<\/p>\n<p>Asked if he would support Roque\u2019s move to press charges against the erring officials, Panelo said he would rather let law take its course.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t have to support anything, there\u2019s always rule of law. Whatever\u2014anybody who wants to file any case against any official, let the law takes it course,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cPalaging \u2018yun ang<\/em>\u00a0stand\u00a0<em>ng<\/em>\u00a0(That is always the stand of the) Office of the President,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, Roque said he was willing to file the cases against former PhilHealth president Roy Ferrer among others for free if PhilHealth president Ricardo Morales would provide him documents to identify officials involved in anomalies.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Panelo said Duterte will await the results of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee\u2019s investigation into the alleged fraud and corruption in the PhilHealth.<\/p>\n<p>PhilHealth board member Roberto Salvador, in a Senate hearing, identified seven persons as being part of an alleged \u201cmafia\u201d or a closed group of influential persons that misused the state health insurance agency\u2019s funds for years.<\/p>\n<p>Panelo, meanwhile, reiterated that the President will never allow or tolerate any irregularity or corruption in this government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MANILA\u00a0&#8212; Former Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque\u2019s suggestion to abolish the Philippine Health Insurance (PhilHealth) should be addressed to Congress, Malaca\u00f1ang &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":222653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227492"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227497,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227492\/revisions\/227497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}