(Eagle News)–For Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, the Senate committee of the whole that recommended the filing of charges against him in connection with the PhilHealth mess “made baseless findings on mere allegations.”
Duque made the remark before the House joint panel looking into the allegations of corruption in the state insurer in its hearing on Wednesday, Sept. 2.
The Senate had also been looking into the same allegations made by Thorrsson Montes Keith, who resigned as antifraud officer of PhilHealth in July, and released its report on Tuesday.
According to Duque, in the first place, he was “not even part of the deliberation and did not sign the said resolution” on the interim reimbursement mechanism, which senators found was being implemented against its function authorized by the law.
He said he has always been against fraud and corruption.
“Rest assured that I am one with you to ensure accountability of public officers and uphold public office as a public trust,” he added.
The Senate panel report said Duque, former PhilHealth Chief Ricardo Morales, and others should be charged for violations of the Revised Penal Code and the Anti-Graft and Corruption law for their “improper and illegal implementation of the Interim Reimbursement Mechanism” against its authorized purpose under the law, and for their grave abuse of discretion or gross negligence in ascertaining IRM beneficiaries without a valid criteria.
It said they should also be held criminally liable for their “failure to withhold tax liabilities of healthcare institutions to which they released IRM funds, and for their act of “charging the corporate operating budget for failure to withhold the taxes in the advancement of funds through the IRM.”
The report said administrative charges should also be filed against Morales and others for not implementing the board resolutions on courtesy resignations, for violating the Commission on Audit rules on the period of liquidation in issuing Memorandum Circular 2020-032, among others.
The report also urged the filing of charges against all other PhilHealth employees and officials who “connived with and participated in the consummation” of the illegal acts.
