Hontiveros never ordered to return over P100M of misused PhilHealth funds 

Claim: Senator Risa Hontiveros, as a board member of PhilHealth, was ordered by the Commission on Audit (COA) to return over P100 million.

The false claim was mentioned in a Facebook post by Jay Sonza in response to Hontiveros criticizing the appointment of retired general Camilo Cascolan as Department of Health (DOH) undersecretary.

Rating: FALSE

Why we fact-checked this: The Facebook post has received over 1,500 reactions, 164 comments, and 157 shares as of writing.

The bottom line: There is no COA report implicating Hontiveros for misused PhilHealth funds. Rappler fact-checked related claims in 2018 and in 2020. VERA Files also fact-checked related claims in 2018, and again in May, and August 2020. 

As the representative of healthcare providers, the senator was briefly part of the DOH board from November 2014 until October 2015. She stepped down from the post to run for the 2016 senatorial elections.

Hontiveros also denied involvement in PhilHealth anomalies. In an interview on DZBB on August 10, 2020, she said, “Alam ‘nyo, dahil siguro malakas akong kritiko ng presidente, wala na silang maibato sa akin, kahit ilang taon na akong wala sa PhilHealth, [inaudible] ng Commission on Audit, at cleared ng PhilHealth mismo, aba patuloy pa rin ang pagpapalaganap ng fake news sa akin sa social media ng mga fake news peddlers kagaya na lang ni Mocha Uson. Eh, limang taon na akong wala sa PhilHealth.”

(Maybe because I am a staunch critic of the president [Rodrigo Duterte], they have nothing to throw at me, despite my not being a PhilHealth board member in years, and despite being cleared both by the Commission on Audit and PhilHealth, fake news peddlers like Mocha Uson still continuously propagate fake news against me. I have been out of PhilHealth for 5 years already.) – Pola Regalario/Rappler.com

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