PhilHealth may be tainted with high-end corruption

The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) may be afflicted with corruption in light of their own revelation of at least P520 million in losses due to padded or fake insurance claims.

The revelations of Dr. Francisco Duque, PhilHealth president and chief executive officer on the said fraudulent claims in April deserve attention and investigation from the proper authorities.

This is quite strange since PhilHealth, with the blessings of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was able to transfer P530,382,446 of the OFW Medicare Trust Fund from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to PhilHealth. Was this transfer aimed at keeping up the glowing figures that Duque always proclaims in media interviews and Congressional inquiries?

This was made possible by Executive Order 392 issued by the President on March 1, 2005. This order merely amended the controversial E.O. 182 and fast-tracked the illegal transfer of OFW funds.

This happened despite firm opposition of OFWs and their families and the Resolutions filed by the House of Representatives to recall Executive Order 182. President Macapagal-Arroyo defied the legislature's efforts to protect the OFW Medicare fund and went ahead to issue Executive Order 392 dated December 28, 2004.

Duque has boasted that the P520 million losses constitute only about four percent of PhilHealth's P52 billion earnings, adding that "this is significantly lower than the 33 percent in fraudulent claims under the defunct Medicare, PhilHealth's forerunner. It shows that we can be better at managing funds compared to Medicare and OWWA."

But there is definitely something wrong with PhilHealth if P520 million gets lost to fraudulent claims. How can claims be accessed without top-level approval? Most likely, there is a syndicate lurking within Philhealth. Add to the fact that Duque got more than P530 million from OWWA. PhilHealth has profited yet again, this time from overseas Filipino workers by blanketing an irregularity with a bigger anomaly with the help of Malacanang. #