Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Sunday said he believes President Duterte will change his mind on Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and eventually relieve him from his post once he reads the Senate committee of the whole’s report on the controversies surrounding the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

“Ang ine-expect ko kapag nakita ng Pangulo ang punto namin, magbabago ang pananaw ng Pangulo (I expect that once the President sees our point, he will change his mind),” Sotto said in an interview over GMANewsTV.

“Maaaring may tiwala pa rin siya, pero may mga bagay na dapat mong harapin, dahil ika nga labag sa batas eh, (His trust on him may still be there but there are things that you need to face, precisely because it is against the law),” the Senate leader reiterated.

Sotto made the remark following the release of the Senate committee of the whole’s report recommending the filing of criminal charges against Duque, who also serves as chairman of the PhilHealth board.

The Senate committee report recommended the filing of malversation against Duque and other top-ranking officials of the state health insurance agency over the alleged misuse of the Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) funds and the overpriced information technology (IT) system project of PhilHealth.

The Senate President said that as chairman of the board, Duque is also responsible for the activities of all the agencies that are under his jurisdiction and should not be claiming he is not responsible for their actions of officers of PhilHealth.

“Hindi puwedeng excuse yun. Kapag ginamit mong excuse yun (You can’t use that as an excuse. If you do), you are pleading guilty to the Revised Penal Code Article 217 dahil negligence yun. Hindi pwede (because that is negligence. So that can’t be),” Sotto explained.

During a House hearing on PhilHealth, Duque earlier rejected the Senate committee’s findings saying the accusations against him were baseless and reiterated he had no hand in the disbursement of the controversial IRM funds.

“I was impleaded on the IRM when I was not even part of the deliberation and did not sign the said resolution. Ni anino ng aking pirma ay hindi makita (Not even my signature can’t be seen),” he said.

Sotto, however, said he is confident that the Senate was able to come up with concrete proof and sound findings that would point to Duque’s liability in PhilHealth’s mess.

“Masusi yung findings, mabusisi talaga yun. Atsaka di yun ika nga kung sino-sino lang or kami kami lang yung nag imbestiga (the findings are really thorough. It wasn’t crafted randomly or was it investigated by just some people),” Sotto pointed out.

“So very confident kami sa mga findings namin. Ang tingin ko nga sa findings namin conservative pa nga eh. Mabait pa nga kami eh (So we are very confident with our findings. We even think our findings are still conservative. We are still that kind),” he stressed.

Sotto and 13 other senators have earlier signed a Senate resolution calling on Duque to step down as Health secretary for his failure to lead the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Duterte, however, refused to heed lawmakers and the medical community’s call for Duque’s resignation, repeatedly defending the latter from critics.