In Philippines, coronavirus crisis led to massive PhilHealth corruption, whistle-blowers claim
- Senate hears ‘mafia’ executives unevenly allocated Covid-19 funds, overpaid for equipment and hoped to cover this by raising overseas foreign worker premiums
- Rodrigo Duterte appointed former general Ricardo Morales to clean up the agency after the WellMed scandal last year, but it could now face bankruptcy
The whistle-blowers, two of whom recently resigned from the Philippine Health Corporation (PhilHealth), made the claims against their former bosses during three Senate hearings lasting 28 hours.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III told This Week in Asia that he believed the former staff members.
“Throughout the course of the hearings, none of the three faltered or changed their statements, unlike the officials in question. That led me to say in the hearing, ‘the best thing about telling the truth is that you don’t have to remember what you said’.”
Just a year ago, President Rodrigo Duterte sacked PhilHealth CEO-president Roy Ferrer and told the entire board to resign after employees of WellMed Dialysis Centre in suburban Manila revealed they had submitted nearly 1 million pesos (US$20,000) worth of bogus claims using the names of dead patients as well as living ones who did not undergo dialysis.
Duterte appointed former army general Ricardo Morales as CEO to rid PhilHealth of corrupt practices and officials last July. Morales, however, retained the board and did not fire anyone implicated in the WellMed scandal. Instead, he hired lawyer Thorrsson Keith to be the agency’s “anti-fraud legal officer”.