MANILA – Resigned Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) president and CEO Ricardo Morales assured that he will not be exempted from any investigation on the alleged anomalies in the state health insurance firm.
Morales, who is battling lymphoma or cancer of the lymph nodes, said on Friday that he felt relieved after submitting his resignation and will now have time to prepare for the investigations.
“I feel relieved. I can now focus on my health and my family,” said Morales in an interview with CNN Philippines. “This is what I thank the President for, for allowing me to step down.”
“Of course, my resignation does not, in any way, absolve me if I was involved in any regularities,” he added. “I have filed a bank secrecy waiver, we have subjected ourselves to the lifestyle check, and we are open to investigation.”
Morales, who tendered his resignation on Wednesday, admitted that the agency has always been a “fertile ground for fraud” and will need outside assistance to fix and clean up.
“Fraud is not new in PhilHealth,” said Morales. “Before I was in PhilHealth, it is there now and unless the right thing is done, it’s going to continue. PhilHealth has 35,000 transactions a day, so that is really a fertile ground for fraud.”
“Whatever you call it, mafia or collusion, it’s possible that there are people colluding with the agents,” he added. “Fix the information system and clean up the database, the membership database, and for these, they would need outside assistance.”
President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered an interagency task force to investigate the alleged irregularities within PhilHealth. The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on Tuesday recommended the immediate firing of all PhilHealth regional directors, alleging that some were part of the “mafia” behind the fraudulent schemes./PN
