MANILA – Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) president and chief executive officer Ricardo Morales insisted there were no large-scale collusion efforts to defraud the corporation.
Morales made the statement during the Laging Handa virtual press conference, citing a recent report of the Commission on Audit (COA) belying the corruption allegations at PhilHealth.
“Noong pumasok ako dito, ‘yung issue na ‘yan was already in existence lalo na ‘yang P154 billion na nawawala daw na pondo,” Morales said.
“Recently, we got an opinion from the COA telling us that they could not find, they could not substantiate this P154-billion loss in the financial statements submitted by PhilHealth from 2013 to 2017. In effect, hindi totoong may nawawalang P154 billion,” he added.
Morales, a retired Army general who was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte to head PhilHealth in June 2019, admitted that there continue to be inefficiencies in the processing of claims.
“Sa laki ng number, volume of transactions there, may mga inefficiencies siya but I can assure you that there is no group of people colluding with each other to defraud PhilHealth in this scale reported. Wala,” Morales stressed.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. earlier vowed to reveal what he claimed were “new anomalies” in PhilHealth, slamming the leadership of Morales for not addressing the issue.
Morales, in response, said that Roque is welcome to find a replacement to take over PhilHealth if he thinks the current leadership cannot implement the Universal Health Care Law./PN
