No PhilHealth money lost? Lacson says liquidation different from audit

Senator Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday said liquidation is different from audit after PhilHealth president Dante Gierran claimed that 92% of the P15 billion supposedly lost to corruption had already been liquidated.

"Liquidation is different from audit. Say, if public funds were spent not for COVID-19 as required under the IRM, but for dialysis centers and infirmaries which are clearly not authorized, it can still be declared as liquidated, but it doesn’t mean that funds were legally disbursed," Lacson said in a statement.

Lacson said this is the reason why some former and current PhilHealth officials have been charged by the task force led by the Department of Justice.

During the Senate Committee of the Whole hearings last year, PhilHealth's former anti-fraud legal officer Thorrsson Montes Keith claimed that some executive officials stole P15 billion from PhilHealth funds.

After the legislative inquiry, then-Philhealth president Ricardo Morales resigned due to health reasons. He was replaced by Gierran, a former National Bureau of Investigation director.

Now five months at the helm of PhilHealth, Gierran said the bulk of the "missing" P15 billion have been liquidated

"Sa totoo lang po, hindi po nawawala, andiyan lang... Sa ngayon po 92% na ang liquidated. So [kakaunti] na lang po [ang hindi pa],” Gierran said at a press briefing on Tuesday.

"I will not allow that iyong pera ng Pilipino nawala. Galing ako sa NBI po, hindi puwedeng mangyari sa akin iyan," he added.

But this did not convince Lacson, who scrutinized PhilHealth's interim reimbursement mechanism (IRM) during the Senate hearings last year.

"The statement that no money is lost may not be absolutely true. We know that unauthorized HCI’s (healthcare institutions) under the IRM mechanism receiving payments from PhilHealth within a very short period of one or two weeks unlike those authorized COVID-related services rendered by hospitals and other HCI’s both public and private which are still waiting to be paid needs some explaining from those responsible for the such anomalous acts," he said.

Asked if Gierran should furnish the Senate with the liquidation documents for the P15 billion, the senator answered: "It is COA’s (Commission on Audit) mandate to examine and audit such liquidation. Not the Senate’s."

The NBI has filed graft and malversation complaints against PhilHealth officials over alleged anomalies in the implementation of the IRM. —KBK, GMA News