Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque expressed his worries that chief of PhilHealth could not stop illegal acts, most especially the claim of a former anti-fraud official that the agency lost some ₱15 billion to corruption, under his watch.
Roque told CNN Philippines’ The Source on Wednesday that the figure cited by PhilHealth’s former anti-fraud legal officer Thorrsson Montes Keith as the money pocketed by PhilHealth officials may be an “accurate estimate,” saying it was aligned to the ₱174 billion stolen during a longer period cited by his own unnamed source of information.
It’s unclear what period is covered by the loss of ₱15 billion supposedly to corruption.
Roque also said that Keith’s credibility as an anti-fraud investigator is solid, especially when Morales initially denied that he was hired by PhilHealth as such.
PhilHealth has been under the microscope in recent weeks after Keith tendered his resignation after learning about corruption schemes in the agency. Keith said a “mafia” operates various fraudulent schemes within PhilHealth, such as overpriced IT deals revealed during a Senate probe Tuesday.
For his part, PhilHealth President and CEO Ricardo Morales said Keith was only vengeful after failing to get a promotion.
“My beef against Gen. Morales is I have no evidence he’s corrupt himself, but when he was placed there by the President to replace a previous board and president because of the WellMed scam, our expectation is he will take concrete steps to rid the agency of corruption,” the spokesperson said.
“Yesterday, what worried me was he admitted that corruption was still rampant and I did not hear steps he has taken to remove corruption in the agency. That, to me, is the most worrisome,” the official added.
Prior to returning as Presidential spokesman, Roque served as lawyer for whistleblowers who exposed a scheme where private dialysis centers supposedly file PhilHealth claims for patients who were already dead.
