Popular food establishments and exporters and two of the country’s leading private universities were identified as among the country’s big corporations that have failed to consistently remit employees’ premium payments to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, the Commission on Audit (COA) has revealed.
Results of a Special Audit on the Collections, Remittances and Reporting of Premium Payments of Members of Philhealth and Management of Philhealth Agents Receipt that was released by COA recently, indicated that a total P195.59 million have not been remitted to the state health insurer as of June, 2019.
COA said such delinquency placed their employees at risk of being denied Philhealth benefits when needed.
State auditors lamented that aside from failing to religiously comply with their responsibility of remitting premium contributions on a monthly basis, six companies sent Philhealth several checks that were dishonored for lack of funds.
COA found that of the 50 top payors with the highest remittance from January 2017 to June 2019, 36 companies had “no reported premium payments for at least one to 29 months in the total estimated amount of P195.59 million.”
The audit examination was limited to those paying premiums through the Land Bank of the Philippines which received for Philhealth a total P17.45 billion from 2017 to June, 2019.
LBP, COA said, topped the list of banks where private and government firms made their premium remittances.
The other banks were the Union Bank of the Philippines, P12.58 billion total collection; United Coconut Planters Bank, P9.53 billion; China Banking Corporation, P7.8 billion; Philippine Veterans Bank, P1.8 billion; Development Bank of the Philippines, P1.74 billion and Bank of Commerce, P1.51 billion.
“Due to audit limitations, the Audit Team selected LBP only and analyzed the premium contributions of top 50 member/payors with the highest remittance combined paid through this bank,” explained COA.
As shown in the list, an IT supplier with main offices in Hong Kong topped the list of employers that were unable to remit on time the premium payments. This firm owed Philhealth P62.46 million in unremitted collections from 2017 to 2019.
Also listed is a resort operator, P42 million; a shipping firm, P24.4 million; a leading fruit exporter, P9.5 million; a janitorial firm, P5.43 million, an operator of a popular chain of bakery products, P3.5 million and an exclusive school in Manila, P3.2 million.
Another university, this time with campuses in Quezon City, and a Japanese appliance maker owed Philhealth, P1.98 million and P3.14 million, respectively. Also in the list is one of the firms that pioneered the grilled chicken business, failing to pay some P682,000 in Philhealth contributions of its employees.