Ombuds keeps hands off on lost Philhealth checks

CEBU, Philippines - The Office of the Ombudsman Visayas has decided to keep its hand off the case of the 28 Philhealth checks lost to fraud by the Cebu City Medical Center.

The anti-graft office refused to conduct an investigation until the city government finishes the administrative investigation being conducted against CCMC Credit Officer Lourdes Archua.

In its consolidated evaluation report furnished to Mayor Michael Rama, Graft Investigator and Prosecution Officer Llorene Grace Razo-Ompod said they will wait for the result of the investigation being conducted by the Special Administrative Investigation Committee formed by the mayor.

This is to prevent ‘possible conflicting results,’ because she said, the same case with the same end goal is now being investigated by the SAIC.

“Since the office of the City Mayor of Cebu had already commenced the investigation of the case arising from herein similar circumstances, it will be prudent for this office not to conduct yet a separate investigation so as to avoid possible conflicting results, if any,” Ompod said.

She also ordered as closed and terminated the complaint filed by Archua against then CCMC chief of hospital Myrna Go and two other personalities before the Ombudsman.

She said that it only appeared that Archua filed the complaint before the Ombudsman as a form of defense to the case filed by the City Legal Office against her before the City Mayor.

The Office of the Mayor charged Archua for gross neglect of duty in July last year for allegedly allowing, under her watch, the illegal release of the 28 Philhealth checks to swindlers, who disguised themselves as Philhealth employees.

She was charged based on the complaint filed by Go before the city legal office.

Go held Archua liable for the release of the checks which the swindlers obtained direct from Archua’s office through City Treasurer Office’s Clerk Mary Grace Lopez.

Archua claimed that it was Lopez who actually released the checks to a certain Concha Ruth Adlawan. In her previous affidavit, she puts herself as the person in-charge only basing on the principle of command responsibility but she later insisted that it was Lopez that should be investigated and not her. (FREEMAN)