Task Force PhilHealth mandated to investigate the embattled state insurer agency assured everyone that it would consider “the evidence only and nothing further,” even as President Rodrigo Duterte defended Health Secretary Francisco Duque III anew.
Duque chairs the board of PhilHealth, whose officials were accused by whistleblowers of pocketing some P15 billion in public funds.
The multi-agency has finish their probe and is now wrapping up their findings set to be released on September 14, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said.
“We have to go by the evidence only and nothing further. Iyan lang ang pagbabasehan ng DOJ prosecutors, for example, or investigators when they make a resolution,” Guevarra clarified.
[That will be the only basis of DOJ prosecutors, for example, or investigators.]
“I intend to apply the same standard in this task being given to Task Force PhilHealth,” he said.
Duterte told Duque not to to resign, even after a Senate committee recommended the filing of criminal charges against him over the alleged “improper and illegal implementation” of PhilHealths’ Interim Reimbursement Mechanism, “malversation of public funds,” and violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
