Sotto wants Finance chief to chair PhilHealth board

Amid efforts to purge PhilHealth of corruption, Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Wednesday said the Finance chief, not the Health Secretary, should be heading the state health insurer's board of directors.

"Nag-file ako ng bill ngayon, ang ginagawa kong chairman ng PhilHealth ang secretary ng finance. Dapat nakakaintindi sa business kung ano, hindi ba? 'Yun ang dapat chairman, secretary of finance, hindi 'yung secretary of health," Sotto said in an interview on GMA's Unang Hirit.

Senate Bill No. 1829, filed on September 14, seeks to amend Section 13 of the Universal Health Care law.

It specifically states that the Department of Finance Secretary, being the ex-officio chairperson of the PhilHealth Board, "must be present and act as the chairman in all board actions and cannot be represented by an alternate or representative."

Sotto's amendatory measure came on the heels of the Senate's investigation on the alleged anomalies in the state health insurer.

The Senate report produced from the said probe last month recommended that Duque be included on the list of personalities to be filed charges over the alleged improper implementation of PhilHealth's interim reimbursement mechanism.

The Justice Department-led task force, however, did not implicate the latter in its submission of initial findings to President Rodrigo Duterte—leaving Sotto "dumbfounded."

On the other hand, Duque denied having any hand in the implementation of IRM, saying he was not even a "voting chairman" of the board.

Sotto maintained that Duque's "negligence" still counts as an offense under Article 217 of the Revised Penal Code. — BM, GMA News