{"id":264154,"date":"2020-08-05T05:03:27","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T09:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=264154"},"modified":"2020-08-05T05:03:27","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T09:03:27","slug":"p15-b-misspent-philhealth-funds-convincing-roque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/08\/05\/p15-b-misspent-philhealth-funds-convincing-roque\/","title":{"rendered":"P15-B misspent PhilHealth funds \u2018convincing\u2019: Roque"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Roque, who filed raps against PhilHealth executives over the WellMed ghost dialysis scam last year, said he also had a source who claimed that for some time, PhilHealth lost about PHP174 billion. (File photo: JOEY DALUMPINES\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque believes the testimony of resigned Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) anti-fraud legal officer Thorsson Montes Keith that the state insurer\u2019s executives may have pocketed PHP15 billion through fraudulent schemes.<\/p>\n

Roque, who filed raps against PhilHealth executives over the WellMed ghost dialysis scam last year, said he also had a source who claimed that for some time, PhilHealth lost about PHP174 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at what Atty. Keith said, perhaps he\u2019s giving us an accurate estimate because he\u2019s not the only one who says that,\u201d he said in an interview over CNN Philippines on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

He vouched for Keith\u2019s credibility, saying the former anti-fraud investigator seemed to be familiar with a pattern of fraud perpetrated in the state health insurance firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that\u2019s convincing because I had another source say that more or less that\u2019s how much money is being lost annually,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roque said what made Keith\u2019s revelation more convincing is that PhilHealth president and chief executive officer (CEO) Ricardo Morales initially tried to deny the former\u2019s position at the state insurer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe initial attempt of Gen. Morales to disclaim his employment as being an anti-fraud investigator I think is crucial because that established the credibility of Atty. Keith and I think Gen. Morales knew that as well that\u2019s why he had to attempt to destroy his credibility by saying he had nothing to do with a fraud investigation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said losing billions of pesos is unacceptable, especially amid a prevailing coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not something that we can digest and we should never digest. We should never accept that even a single peso is lost through corruption because precisely the law which I authored in the lower house, Universal Healthcare, will not be implemented correctly unless every single peso that the state invests in PhilHealth is used towards providing the people with free medicine and free healthcare,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Keith said PhilHealth executives are responsible for “syndicate-like” implementation of the interim reimbursement mechanism (IRM) or cash advance program, the procurement of overpriced information, and communication technology equipment.<\/p>\n

No evidence vs. Morales<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although he had no evidence that Morales himself is engaged in corrupt activities, Roque again expressed dismay over his seeming lack of action to rid the agency of corruption.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he was placed there by the President [Rodrigo Duterte] to replace a previous board and a previous president because of the WellMed scam, our expectation is that we will concrete steps to rid the agency of corruption. Yesterday, what worried me was he admitted that corruption is still rampant and I did not hear steps that he has taken to remove corruption in the agency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roque noted that while a PhilHealth president should be able to deal with corruption within his or her agency, Morales himself said he is unable to do so.<\/p>\n

He, meanwhile, said he will leave it to Morales to decide whether to take a leave of absence or resign amid mounting anomalies in PhilHealth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s really up to him. I\u2019m not in a position to tell him what to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roque, according to Senator Christopher \u201cBong\u201d Go, said the President will not fire Morales unless there is evidence to prove his links to corruption.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping that all these investigations will document the evidence that the President wants to see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also expressed full faith in confidence in the three investigations being conducted into irregularities at the PhilHealth, hopeful it would lead to the filing of cases.<\/p>\n

The Senate, the Office of the Special Assistant to the President, and the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission have launched an investigation into issues hounding PhilHealth.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s just say that unlike two months ago, authorities are finally investigating him\u2026I think we can only keep the stench from coming out for a little period of time, but you can\u2019t actually prevent it from seeping out and that\u2019s what\u2019s happening now. The truth is being uncovered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque believes the testimony of resigned Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) anti-fraud legal officer Thorsson Montes …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":252612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264154","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264156,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264154\/revisions\/264156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}