{"id":264632,"date":"2020-08-09T09:05:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-09T13:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=264632"},"modified":"2020-08-09T09:05:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-09T13:05:41","slug":"palace-mum-on-philhealth-execs-plan-to-skip-senate-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/08\/09\/palace-mum-on-philhealth-execs-plan-to-skip-senate-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Palace mum on PhilHealth execs\u2019 plan to skip Senate probe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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PhilHealth executive vice president Arnel de Jesus also informed Sotto that he would not be able participate in the next Senate hearing since he is currently confined in a hospital since August 5 due to an \u201cunforeseen medical emergency.\u201d (File Photo<\/a>: Philippine Health Insurance Corporation\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Sunday said it will leave to the Senate to make remarks on the decision of two top Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) officials to skip the next Senate hearing into corruption allegations within the state insurer.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the Palace respects the Senate as a \u201cseparate, co-equal branch\u201d of government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe leave it to the Senate, a separate co-equal branch, to comment on reports that officials of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) may skip their hearing, scheduled on August 11, for medical \/ health reasons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Senate President Vicente \u201cTito\u201d Sotto III bared that PhilHealth President and chief executive Ricardo Morales was advised by his doctor to take a leave of absence as he is scheduled to undergo treatment for lymphoma.<\/p>\n

PhilHealth executive vice president Arnel de Jesus also informed Sotto that he would not be able participate in the next Senate hearing since he is currently confined in a hospital since August 5 due to an \u201cunforeseen medical emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Panfilo \u201cPing\u201d Lacson earlier said that the failure of the two officials to attend Tuesday\u2019s probe is \u201ctheir loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir failure to attend Tuesday\u2019s hearing is their loss, not the Senate\u2019s, simply because they won\u2019t be there to respond to new issues to be brought up by resource persons and some new incriminating documents in our possession,\u201d Lacson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Lacson, however, said it is \u201cunfortunate\u201d that corruption allegations came at a time when Morales\u2019 health condition is at a low point and wished for his recovery.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Roque assured that despite the absence of Morales and de Jesus in Senate hearings, investigation of the Department of Justice-led task force into the massive corruption within PhilHealth will proceed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as the Executive is concerned, the Task Force organized by the Department of Justice, upon the instruction of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, will proceed in its mandate to investigate on the various allegations of corruption in PhilHealth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roque said the task force will conduct an audit of PhilHealth finances and lifestyle checks on its officials and employees.<\/p>\n

If warranted, he said the task force may also recommend the preventive suspension on any official to ensure that the probe of the task force would be unhampered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no turning back as we expect the task force to submit its findings and recommendations to the Office of the President within 30 days after its constitution as directed by the Chief Executive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Duterte directed the Department of Justice to create a task force to probe widespread corruption within PhilHealth.<\/p>\n

PhilHealth anti-fraud officer Thorsson Montes Keith earlier claimed that some PHP15 billion of the agency\u2019s funds had been misused for years by a \u201cmafia\u201d within the state insurer.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Sunday said it will leave to the Senate to make remarks on the decision of two top …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":204928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264632","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\/264632","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=264632"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264634,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264632\/revisions\/264634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}