MANILA, Philippines — The Palace on Friday accused Philippine Health Insurance Corp. President and CEO Ricardo Morales of attempting "to divert attention from his failure to cleanup the agency."
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque went on to say that Morales is operating under the assumption that only courts can remove corrupt PhilHealth officials, "when in truth, he has administrative powers to suspend and remove them."
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He again questioned whether Morales was still suited to head PhilHealth or if he would "better utilized elsewhere."
Roque and Morales have gone back and forth over irregularities within the state-run agency and the implementation of the Universal Health Care Law.
The presidential spokesperson recently called Morales' suggestion to suspend implementation of the UHC unlawful.
He also pushed Morales to order administrative investigations of officials linked to corruption even if there are pending cases against them with the Office of Ombudsman or with the courts.
Morales responded by saying he suggests that "Roque be more specific and file cases himself if he has any [evidence]."
He added that PhilHealth has submitted "voluminous documents" to the National Bureau of Investigation and the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) to support the filing of cases against 20 executives and employees.
The PhilHealth chief said the agency's legal department is "already overwhelmed" by the 10,000 cases against hospitals and medical professionals already docketed.
Funding woes
Morales on Friday projected P100 billion in revenue shortfall for the agency beginning next year to 2024.
To stop the “financial hemorrhage,” Morales said the agency is beginning to “identify which benefits we can suspend temporarily” while waiting for normalcy to return and premium collections to recover.
The problem involved the ambitious universal health care law enacted last year and was poised for a pilot run this year until it was halted by COVID-19 crisis. As a result, premium collections from members dropped, while a hike on monthly fees from overseas workers were halted in April following public backlash. — with reporting from Ian Cigral