Senator Vicente Sotto III has issued a statement after he learned that DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III will not face any charges over the corruption issues within the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth).
“No Duque? No Del Rosario? I’m dumbfounded! Article 217 (Malversation) of the [Revised Penal Code] is very clear,” he said.
Sen. Sotto is the chairman of the Senate Committee of the Whole which has recommended filing “malversation and graft charges” against several officials of the state-run insurance firm including the secretary of the Department of Health.
The committee led by the senate president also wants to file administrative cases versus resigned PhilHealth senior vice president for legal sector Rodolfo del Rosario and other officials “for their failure to act and gross neglect of duties relative to the cases pending in their department.”
But according to a report of Inquirer.net, the multi-agency task force, headed by the Department of Justice, created to investigate PhilHealth anomalies did not recommend the filing of charges against Duque and Del Rosario.
“Perhaps the Ombudsman would have a better perspective of the anomalies,” Sen. Sotto noted.
PhilHealth corruption first erupted after resigned PhilHealth anti-fraud legal officer Thorrsson Montes Keith revealed in a Senate hearing that a whopping P15 billion worth of funds have been pocketed by the so-called ‘mafia‘ in a “syndicate-like” transactions.
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