MoA highly disadvantageous to PhilHealth, 2 House panels say
The Memorandum of Agreement between the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and the Philippine Red Cross is highly disadvantageous to the PhilHealth, two House of Representatives committees have reported.
(MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
“We hope that with the report, changes can be made in the MoA to ensure accountability,” said Anakalusugan Rep. Michael Defensor, chairman of the House Committee on Public Accounts.
Defensor led the House joint panel inquiry into the multi-billion peso fund irregularities that has hounded PhilHealth. The congressional probe also reviewed the PhilHealth-PRC MoA on the conduct by Red Cross of COVID-19 testing on arriving migrant workers.
The committee report was jointly approved Tuesday by the Committees on Public Accounts and on Good Government, the day PhilHealth paid P500 million of its over P1-billion COVID-19 test debt to PRC.
“MoA is disadvantageous to the government for the following reasons: PhilHealth cannot hold the PRC for any damage or liability that may arise from the services provided by PRC; there is no specific provision for monitoring the utilization, liquidation, and reportorial requirements in regard to the fund advanced, and any balance in the advance payment made to PRC shall no longer be returned to the PhilHealth but shall stay with PRC as stranded cost,” the joint panel report stated.
The report said: “PhilHealth’s MoA with PRC also violated existing policies and standard operating procedures in that PhilHealth’s Legal Sector, through the Internal Legal Department, neither conducted any review any contract review, nor issued the required “contract certification” prior to the execution of the said MoA.”
Later, it was revealed that PhilHealth legal counsel Alfredo Pineda had warned that the MoA “had no legal basis.”
Pineda also noted that “preferential treatment” was accorded PRC in relation to the deal.
Defensor’s appeal for amendment of the MoA is pointed to the committee findings that under the MoA, the PRC cannot be held liable for liabilities and damages that may happen to PhilHealth and any person who underwent COVID-19 treatment.
Not even adverse audit findings and acts of irregularities in the deal can be blamed to PRC headed by Sen. Richard J. Gordon, it was gathered.
Actually, the House joint panel’s probe centered on the allegedly anomalous grant of P100-million advance payment to PRC and the delayed ratification of the MoA that PhilHealth and PRC entered into on May 5, 2020.
On the same day, PRC received its advanced payment of P100 million from PhilHealth.
The House panel report said PhilHealth ratified the MoA on May 14.
“The disbursement of the said amount on May 5, 2020 before the May 14, 2020 ratification of the PCEO’s authority by the board is illegal, to say the least,” said the joint committee report.
The committees reiterated: “The eventual ratification or confirmation of the MoA through the issuance of PhilHealth Board Resolution 2521 after the release of millions of fund was highly irregular, if not ultra vires (beyond one's legal power or authority).”
“Such post recognition by the PhilHealth board is a tacit admission that it lacks the authority for the P100-million cash advanced to PRC by PhilHealth,” the lawmakers added.
The resolution did not bear the signature of PhilHealth board chairman Health Secretary Francisco Duque.
“Maybe they, too, felt that this particular board’s action is indeed beyond its competence and authority,” the joint panel report stated.