MANILA – Health secretary Francisco Duque III and other board members of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) are not yet off the hook on the alleged irregularities within the state insurer.
Department of Justice (DOJ) secretary Menardo Guevarra said that, so far, the task force created by President Rodrigo Duterte to investigate PhilHealth does not see enough evidence against Duque.
“We are not yet ruling out liability on the part of Duque and other board members as they dig deeper into the allegations,” Guevarra said in an interview with CNN Philippines on Thursday.
The DOJ said Task Force PhilHealth found irregularities in the state insurer’s Interim Reimbursement Mechanism, procurement of ICT equipment and policy for accountability.
“We have only focused our attention on these areas and insofar as Sec. Duque is concerned we have not seen enough evidence that would make us recommend that he be charged administratively or criminally,” Guevarra said.
“But it doesn’t mean to say that when we conduct further investigations, when we go more deeply into the evidence or other transactions or other areas of fraud, we are absolutely and totally exonerating the Secretary or the other members of the board. It all depends on what we may see further in the future,” he added.
Guevarra explained that Duque is “not a standalone figure” in PhilHealth, being the non-voting chairman of a collegial board of directors, and thus cannot be “isolated like any other executive officer of the board.”
“Kaya in the case of PhilHealth, baka the proper attention due to PhilHealth might not have been given precisely because the Secretary of Health has been spread too thinly,” Guevarra said.
“But that’s not really an excuse. Sayang dahil PhilHealth is a very important agency or corporation of the government and I believe that more attention, especially in the light of so many anomalies or irregularities being reported, should have been given by the secretary and the members of the board to PhilHealth,” he added./PN
