Sen. Panfilo Lacson has asked corrupt officials of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to take a break from their illegal activities while a pandemic is ongoing.
“May panawagan lang ako sa PhilHealth, doon sa mga corrupt, baka puwede moratorium muna tayo doon sa corruption (I appeal to the corrupt PhilHealth to have have a moratorium from corruption),” Lacson said during an inteview over CNN Philippines on Thursday.
“Baka sakali 'yung moratorium na ito during the pandemic maging dress rehearsal na it feels good pala not to be corrupt (This moratorium during the pandemic might become a dress rehearsal for them that they feel good being corrupt),” he said.
The senator made the call as President Duterte has not yet made any move to remove the PhilHealth officials linked to corrupt activities and none of them have signified stepping down or at least taking leaves of absences due to the allegations, including PhilHealth president and chief executive officer, retired Army Brig. Gen. Ricardo Morales.
“I hope Malacanang would take a look at our findings and decide for themselves if there wisdom in keeping Morales and the other officials in their posts,” Lacson said.
The senator advised the PhilHealth chief to help Duterte decide.
“The most abused statement ‘I serve at the pleasure of the President.’ And sometimes the President cannot decide to fire an official out of so many reasons, mostly personal,” said Lacson as he pointed out that Morales has declared that he intends to finish his job at PhilHealth.
“Dapat tulungan na lang natin 'yung Presidente, wag na maghirap magdesisyon (Let’s help the President decide),” Lacson stressed.
The lawmaker reminded Morales had been at PhilHealth for a year and that should had been enough time for him to at least look into allegations of corruption.
Lacson lamented Morales is “still trying to defend it instead of taking a look or conduct an inquiry at least into those allegations.”
“And there are cases filed in the Ombudsman. But what happens under the leadership of Gen. Morales? Those who were being investigated or at least facing charges before the Ombudsman or before the National Prosecution Service, they were promoted under Gen. Morales,” the lawmaker added.
So far, Lacson admitted that it is too early at this stage of the Senate inquiry to determine if Morales was involved in the corrupt activities or has been misled by those involved.
“But it is apparent that there is really a mafia-like syndicate operating in the PhilHealth,” Lacson observed.
Because of this, the senator said he does not support giving additional budget to PhilHealth despite claims that the agency will go bankrupt by 2022.
“We’ll have to see first some serious reforms in PhilHealth before we do that,” he declared.
“Pero (But) if they only show us that they spend money judiciously, economically then probably we’ll continue supporting PhilHealth along this line,” he assured.