#TalkThursday with Alex Padilla

Rappler.com

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Rappler talks to Alexander Padilla, the newly appointed CEO and president of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.
 

 

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler talks to Alexander Padilla, the newly appointed CEO and president of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.

Padilla is also the head of the government peace panel negotiating with the communist-led National Democratic Front (NDF), a position he held since being appointed by President Benigno Aquino III in 2010.

After nearly 3 years, he now wants out of the peace process saying he is “frustrated and disappointed.”

In December 2012, NDF chair Jose Maria Sison proposed that talks can proceed on a “special track”. Negotiations reached a deadlock after Sison changed his mind and insisted the talks should return to the “regular track of negotiations.”

Padilla’s frustrations lay with the continuous delays in talks which extend the New People Army’s four-decade-old insurgency. He says, “Maybe I have done my share. Maybe I have done as far as where I can go, as far as the peace process is concerned. It needs new blood, new mind, new initiative.”

Padilla also spearheaded the government’s battle against tobacco and the passing of the sin tax measure. He also served as Health Undersecretary during the terms of Arroyo and Aquino.

As the government’s national health insurance program, Philhealth is key to achieving the Aquino administration’s campaign promises of universal health care coverage.

Watch the interview below.

– Rappler.com

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