PhilHealth likely to get 'below average' rating, says GOCC watchdog

The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) will likely get a 'below average' rating due to issues hounding the agency, the Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG) said Tuesday.

In a Senate hearing, GCG chairman Samuel Dagpin, Jr. said the state insurer was expected to have low scores in terms of finance and internal processes.

The GCG is the central policy-making and regulatory body mandated to ensure that the operations of government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) are transparent and responsive to the needs of the public.

According to Dagpin, the evaluation of GOCC officials includes attendance, the director performance rating, self-assessment, and fair grading with colleagues.

The GCG also takes into consideration several factors in its performance evaluation.

"We have there (how) the GOCC contributed social impact, the stakeholders' satisfaction, the finance provided - (if they) provided the needed finance support with respect to PhilHealth," Dagpin said.

"Internal processes, just like how their investigation, how they will address this time, the turnaround time of paying the claimants... The last two has below average grade," he added.

He clarified, however, that the full performance report has yet to be finalized as the PhilHealth documents were only submitted to his office last week.

"For 2019, I have yet to validate because they submitted all the documents August 4, this month, so we need to validate these documents submitted per for performance scorecard so I could assess," he said.

In response, Senator Grace Poe-Llamanzares said the GCG should have prepared, considering that the first year of Morales with PhilHealth ended in June.

"With all of the data we have, I guess you haven't really done your responsibility of reviewing, especially since it's past the one-year mark," she said.

"Not only should you start the review when the one-year mark has ended, but prior to that you already should have done your due diligence. Late na po kayo dito," she added.

PhilHealth and its officials are under investigation over the agency's alleged overpriced purchase of an information technology system worth over P2 billion.

In the previous Senate hearing, resigned anti-fraud officer Thorsson Montes Keith claimed that the PhilHealth "mafia," composed of the executive committee, stole some P15 billion through fraudulent schemes.

PhilHealth, in a statement, has since denied such claims. -NB, GMA News