Lacson: Duterte needs strong political will, not emergency powers, to clean up PhilHealth

This composite photo shows Sen. Panfilo Lacson and President Rodrigo Duterte.
Senate PRIB/Joseph Vidal | Presidential Photo/King Rodriguez

MANILA, Philippines — Another senator is dismissing a proposal to give President Rodrigo Duterte additional powers to clean up the embattled Philippine Health Insurance Corp.

"More than 'emergency powers' to reorganize PhilHealth, what the President needs is real, honest-to-goodness, strong political will first," Sen. Panfilo Lacson said Friday.

This comes after lawmakers at the House of Representatives, during a joint hearing on alleged anomalies and corruption within PhilHealth, proposed granting the chief executive emergency powers to reform the state-run agency.

Senate Majority Leader Tito Sotto and Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Thursday thumbed down the proposal, both arguing that the president already has more than enough power to take action.

While Drilon claimed that Duterte can "reform and reorganize" PhilHealth without emergency powers, Lacson said the chief executive "actually needs an act of Congress to delegate to him such power or authority."

However, Lacson added that "if the President's intention is to cleanse PhilHealth of scalawags and misfits, he may not need that delegated authority anymore."

He further argued that Duterte already "has the Philippine National Police, National Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice and other instrumentalities of government at his disposal."

In a meeting with his Cabinet aired last Tuesday, the president said that he would use the remaining two years of his term in working on cases against corrupt officials and personnel of PhilHealth.

READ: Duterte vows to work on cases vs erring PhilHealth execs until term ends

Senators seek Duque's replacement

"That said, there is no time to lose to exercise such political will: No matter how good our country's economic managers are, if our health department is below the level of incompetence in the middle of this pandemic, we will all sink before we can even start to swim," Lacson urged.

"For a start, he can fire its ex-officio chairman and replace him with someone even with little above-average leadership traits, competence, honesty and integrity — and who won't wash his hands but takes full responsibility for what PhilHealth does or fails to do," he added.

The Senate on Tuesday bared its Committee of the Whole Report which recommended the filing of criminal and administrative charges against several executives of PhilHealth.

In addition to recommending the filing of charges against Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, who sits as PhilHealth chairman of the Board, the upper chamber in their report also urged that the president replace him as the country's top health official.

Even before the Senate's probe into the alleged corruption and mismanagement of PhilHealth's executives, over half of its members had already called for Duque's resignation over his handling of the country's COVID-19 response.

Duque, who continues to enjoy the president's trust, according to Malacañang, virtually attended the House panel hearing on Wednesday and backed the proposal to grant the president emergency powers. — Bella Perez-Rubio

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