WEBB: Okay. All right. I need to shift topic, sir – PhilHealth. I know you have a lot to say about this, this is something we discussed even in the past. I think—
SEC. ROQUE: [Laughs] …Don’t get me started Pinky [laughs].
WEBB: We were already calling out President Morales of PhilHealth. No, I have to get you started, sir. No, sir, we need to understand the situation. Let’s look at what was said yesterday. Atty. Keith of the Anti-Fraud Team of PhilHealth—former rather, said 15 billion pesos was stolen or misused by the mafia or PhilHealth executives. I wanted to ask you, is 15 billion—does this sound about right to you or do you think this is exaggerated or understated even?
SEC. ROQUE: Well, you know, when we initially brought to the public’s attention the WellMed scam ‘no, I was no longer Spokesperson then, I was a private individual. We also had a source who said that for a period of time, PhilHealth lost about 174 billion more or less. And that is why if you look at what Atty. Keith said, perhaps he’s giving us an accurate estimate because he’s not the only one who says that.
And what is somehow making people believe Atty. Keith, is he is an anti-fraud investigator and initially when he resigned, Gen. Morales denied that he was an anti-fraud investigator and for simply—who was a simple as showing his ID that he is in fact an anti-fraud investigator. And the initial attempt of Gen. Morales to disclaim his employment as being an anti-fraud investigator I think is crucial because that established the credibility of Atty. Keith and I think Gen. Morales knew that as well, that’s why he had to attempt to destroy his credibility by saying he had nothing to do with fraud investigation.
So, someone who is familiar with the pattern of fraud perpetrated in the PhilHealth, I would say that’s convincing because I had another source that said that more or less that’s how much money is being lost annually.
WEBB: 15B?
SEC. ROQUE: Yes, and of course even in—for accounting purposes, they recognized that there will be 2% wastage on fraud itself and this is an accepted figure worldwide ‘no. But of course, the 15 billion has exceeded the 2% ceiling recognized by accountants worldwide. WEBB: Well, that’s where I wanted to go. The President said President Morales was saying the 10 billion lost in fraudulent claims in 2019, I was going to ask you that. Is that even acceptable because if you ask, I’m sure, sir, all of us who pay our PhilHealth contributions, 10 billion is not something easy to digest, sir.
SEC. ROQUE: No, that’s not something that we can digest and we should never digest. We should never accept that even a single peso is lost through corruption because precisely the law which I authored in the Lower House – Universal Healthcare, will not be implemented correctly unless every single peso that the state invests in PhilHealth is used towards providing the people with free medicine and free healthcare. So every centavo counts, we cannot afford to lose 10 billion, not even 1 peso for that matter.
WEBB: Yeah. But when there is such a statement, sir, that 10 billion pesos could have been lost in fraudulent claims, that’s not—I guess that’s just not acceptable, sir.
SEC. ROQUE: It is not and that’s why my beef against Gen. Morales is I have no evidence that he is corrupt himself. But when he was placed there by the President to replace a previous board and a previous president because of the WellMed scam, our expectation is he will take concrete steps to rid the agency of corruption.
WEBB: Yeah.
SEC. ROQUE: And yesterday what worried me was he admitted that corruption was still rampant and I did not hear steps that he has taken to remove corruption in the agency – that to me, is the most worrisome.
WEBB: We’re back on The Source, I only have time for one more question. Secretary Roque, do you think Gen. Morales should take a leave of absence or resign?
SEC. ROQUE: That’s really up to him. I’m not in a position to tell him what to do. The President has said that he will not fire him unless there’s evidence and I think the Senate now is in the process of documenting this evidence, at the same time there’s also parallel investigation being conducted by Usec. Quitain. So it’s his decision whether or not he wants to go on leave while these investigations are ongoing but I’m just happy that 2 branches of government are investigating these allegations of fraud because as I said, our Universal Healthcare Law cannot succeed unless we rid PhilHealth of corruption.
@The Source/CNN Philippines