CSC not handling corruption cases vs. PhilHealth officials —chief

The Civil Service Commission (CSC) is only handling administrative, and not corruption, cases involving PhilHealth officials and personnel, its chairperson told a congressional hearing on Thursday.

"I wish to clarify that none of the cases before the CSC involves issues of corruption," said CSC chairperson Alicia Bala as she appeared before the House joint panel inquiry into the alleged irregularities at PhilHealth.

"The pending cases before the commission are mostly administrative cases involving personnel action, which are non-disciplinary in nature," she added.

"We don't handle criminal cases involving graft and corruption."

Bala appeared before the joint panel following the allegation of CSC commissioner Aileen Lizada in the previous hearing that she supposedly gave a guidance in their earlier meeting to suppress information on PhilHealth cases lodged before the commission.

Bala reiterated during the hearing that she did not issue such a guidance.

"I'm categorically stating that as the CSC chairperson, I made no directive, guidance or insinuations for the commission to suppress information in any case," Bala said, adding that Lizada's recollection of their August 11 meeting was wrong.

"For the record, I was the one who gave the instruction to give the list to Comm. Lizada and to all the participants of the commission's meeting. I would hardly call the dissemination of the list as a suppression of information," Bala said.

Bala said they have forwarded to the joint panel a copy of the video recording and minutes of their meeting, as well as the list of cases involving PhilHealth officials.

"The CSC has been actively cooperating with the PhilHealth's task force and we have been providing relevant information and technical assistance needed by the task force," she said.

"I have forwarded to this committee a complete list of cases involving PhilHealth personnel which list may have been provided to you by Commissioner Lizada." —KBK, GMA News