Senate pushes criminal raps vs Duque, PhilHealth execs

(UPDATED) The Senate committee of the whole on Tuesday, September 1, 2020, recommended the filing of criminal and administrative charges against Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and executive officers and employees of the state-owned Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) over alleged “corruption and mismanagement”.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III presented the committee report before the plenary Tuesday.

The report recommended to the Department of Justice and the Office of the Ombudsman the filing of the following charges:

• Malversation of public funds, illegal use of public funds and violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act against Duque, chairman of the board; Ricardo Morales, former president and CEO; Arnel de Jesus, executive vice president and chief operating officer; Renato Limsiaco Jr., senior vice president for fund management sector; Israel Francis Pargas, senior vice president for health finance policy sector; and all other officials and employees who were involved in the improper and illegal implementation of the interim reimbursement mechanism (IRM);
• Malversation of public funds, violation of the National Internal Revenue Code, violation of Republic Act 1051 and violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act against Duque, Morales, Limsiaco, Pargas and other involved officials and employees for failing to withhold tax liabilities of health care institutions that received IRM funds and for charging the corporate operating budget;
• Prosecution of offenses, negligence and tolerance, and violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act against Rodolfo del Rosario Jr., senior vice president for legal sector and all other PhilHealth officials and employees who failed to act upon the cases filed before them; and
• Falsification, fraud against the public treasury, removal/concealment/destruction of public document, violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and violation of the Government Procurement Reform Act against Jovita Aragona, senior vice president for information management sector; Calixto Gabuya Jr., acting senior manager of the information technology and management department; and other PhilHealth officials and employees who connived with and participated in the overpricing of IT supply and concealment/alteration of documents.

• Neglect of duty and insubordination against Morales and senior vice president Dennis Mas for not implementing board resolutions on courtesy resignations;
• Violation of Commission on Audit (COA) rules against Morales and De Jesus; and
• Gross neglect of duty against Del Rosario and all other employees of the Protest and Appeal Review Department of PhilHealth for failing to act on pending cases.

• Immediately require healthcare institutions which received IRM funds to liquidate utilized funds and return the unutilized amount;
• PhilHealth should immediately pay the claims of private hospitals, prioritizing the Covid-19 referral hospitals and those with high number of Covid-19 admissions;
• COA should be allowed to audit every stage of operations of PhilHealth, even at the regional level without any hindrance to ensure that government funds are properly managed and spent;
• Outsource the IT services of PhilHealth;
• Outsource the benefits claims to avoid backlogs and massive reimbursement delays;
• All high-ranking PhilHealth executive officers down to the regional vice presidents to file their courtesy resignations; and
• PhilHealth should implement a regular reassignment of its regional vice presidents every three years.