Senator Richard Gordon, Philippine Red Cross chairman, said that the embattled Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) should pay its remaining P561 million-debt to PRC in 3 days.

In an interview with ANC’s Headstart on Wednesday, October 28, Gordon said that PhilHealth’s outstanding balance would accumulate if it will not pay its debt immediately, since PRC has already resumed testing.

“They should do that. It goes very fast. If we start testing today, let’s say 10,000 tests, (it’s too big already) malaki na agad ‘yan – 5,000 tests [are] about P15 million,” Gordon explained.

PhilHealth’s outstanding balance of P561 million is equivalent to 160,475 COVID-19 tests.

A day after it promised to settle its debt, the state health insurer made a partial payment of P500 million of its P1.1-billion debt to the PRC on Tuesday, October 27.

PhilHealth said it will “expedite processing of the remaining balance following strict compliance to government accounting rules and regulations.”

Meanwhile, PhilHealth chief Dante Gierran said that the state health insurer “takes exception to the insinuation that it is reckless and is playing on people’s lives.”

“Its prudence in taking charge of its members’ hard-earned contributions is central to the state health insurer. Its exercise of judiciousness is to protect the people and their funds,” Gierran added.

Gierran made the statement after Gordon said that the PhilHealth chief was being “cautious” to speed up the payment of its debt.

Under the Universal Health Care Law, PhilHealth is designated as the “national purchaser” of health goods and services, which cover COVID-19 testing and treatment of all Filipinos.

PhilHealth’s agreement with PRC is that it should give P100 million as advance payment within 3 days so that the organization will always have a revolving fund for testing supplies and inventory. (READ: Did Gordon’s P100M Red Cross deal with PhilHealth violate laws?)

In his previous interviews, Gierran explained that the reason why there were delays in reimbursements was that they found questionable items in the agency’s existing agreement with PRC.

A Rappler investigative story published on September 15 revealed that PhilHealth and the PRC entered into a contract deemed disadvantageous to the government, following the advance payment of P100 million ($2.05 million) for PRC’s COVID-19 tests. (READ: Did Gordon’s P100M Red Cross deal with PhilHealth violate laws?)

PRC, however, maintained that PhilHealth’s advance payments are allowed and that the deal was not disadvantageous to the government.

Lawmakers in August investigated PhilHealth for alleged corruption as whistleblowers accused executives of pocketing some P15 billion ($309.6 million) in funds.

On August 26, Ricardo Morales resigned as PhilHealth chief after President Rodrigo Duterte asked him to vacate his post due to his health condition.

Several top PhilHealth officials, including Morales, are now facing an administrative complaint. – Rappler.com