Palace warned corrupt personnel of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) that their ‘happy days’ there are numbered.
This, as President Rodrigo Duterte has issued on Friday a memorandum directing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to create a task force that will investigate the supposed irregularities within the agency.
The memorandum orders the creation of a panel tasked to make an audit of the PhilHealth finances and conduct lifestyle checks on the state insurer’s officials and employees.
The panel is mandated to submit to the Office of the President its findings and recommendations 30 days after its creation.
The report should include the proposed legal actions against PhilHealth officials and employees who will be found involved in corrupt activities.
In a virtual press conference, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said other members of the task force include the Office of the Ombudsman, Commission on Audit, Civil Service Commission, the Office of the Executive Secretary, the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission, and the Office of the Special Assistant to the President.
Roque said, “The President deferred to the agencies [that are members of the task force] and to their appreciation of evidence,” he said. “Ang mensahe sa mga buwaya sa PhilHealth, tapos na po ang maliligayang araw niyo diyan. Goodbye.”
Duterte gave the latest directive after a former anti-fraud officer of PhilHealth claimed that around PHP15 billion of the agency’s funds have been pocketed by corrupt PhilHealth officials.
Resigned PhilHealth anti-fraud legal officer Thorsson Montes Keith bared that all members of PhilHealth’s executive committee composed the “mafia,” which had been allegedly defrauding the state corporation for the past years through unlawful transactions.
