There is a powerful mafia or syndicate that controls the multi-billion peso operations at the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) that even a weekly change of its president or even a superman could not uproot.
This was the conclusion from the testimony of former PhilHealth Executive Vice President (EVP) and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Augustus de Villa that retired Brig. Gen. Ricardo Morales, PhilHealth president and chief executive officer (CEO), had told him to leave agency because his fellow vice presidents do not trust him, Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson, vice chairman of the Senate Committee of the Whole, said.
Where can you find an instance ‘’where a corporation’s executive committee is more powerful than its president and chief executive officer?’’ Lacson asked.
A ranking PhilHealth official had threatened to take legal action against one of the three whistleblowers for naming some executive committee members as comprising the in-house Mafia.
A PhilHealth officer had testified that the actuarial life of PhilHealth would be on a very precarious position in 2021.
Morales had testified that corruption at PhilHealth and other health insurers the world over is systemic and that even a weekly change of its president could stop corruption at the agency.
But Lacson disagreed and said that anyone who is smart and would refuse to be co-opted by the mafia could efficiently run PhilHealth.
Asked during a radio interview Thursday whether firing Morales from the top PhilHealth post would stop the hemorrhaging of agency funds or other anomalous decisions and would set the stage for a major cleanup, Lacson said that the powerful mafia has to be "uprooted’’ first.
It is very clear that there is widespread corruption at PhilHealth based on testimonies and pieces of evidence so far submitted, he added.
Queried whether President Duterte could now dismiss Morales, a former member of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) that helped topple the Marcos administration in the 80s, Lacson recalled the President stating that he trusts Morales and that he would wait for the recommendation of the task force he had created to investigate irregularities at PhilHealth.
Both Morales and Senators Lacson and Ronald dela Rosa are graduates of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).
Lacson was not optimistic that the President would fire Morales based on his past actions at the graft-ridden Bureau of Customs.
He also cited the President’s repeated statements that he trusts Department of Health (DoH) Secretary Francisco Duque despite calls for his resignation by senators.
Lacson emphasized that the Senate has the authority to make recommendations against anybody to proper agencies such as the Office of the Ombudsman in its law-making mandate.
Asked whether the Senate is ready to make recommendations based on testimonies given and pieces of evidence submitted during its probes, Lacson said the Senate Committee of the Whole might undertake its third and last committee hearing on the PhilHealth issue Tuesday.
Queried on the past statement of the President that he would not hesitate to fire anybody if is there is whiff of corruption, Lacson the PhilHealth case "stinks.’’
The Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) had estimated that some P154 billion had been lost due to corruption at PhilHealth from 2013 to the present.
While other "favorites’’ were given reimbursements for the treatment of various ailments, an association of private hospitals are complaining that PhilHealth still has to pay its members a total of P2.3 billion even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.