Depoliticizing PhilHealth

The public clamor for DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III to resign from his post has never been as resounding in the past months as it is at present. Critics have portrayed Secretary Duque as a failed knight in the Philippines’ fight against COVID-19. He once claimed that the country has successfully flattened the curve only to be contradicted by his department’s report of rising COVID cases.

Now that PhilHealth takes center stage as a government entity riddled with massive corruption, Secretary Duque’s name is once again dragged into the controversy. Duque was the health secretary who led the distribution of “Plan 5 Million” health cards when former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ran for President in the 2004 elections. A PhilHealth official claimed that the corporation lost billions of pesos to Secretary Duque’s health card scheme.

Under Republic Act No. 10606, the Secretary of Health shall be the ex officio Chairperson with four other cabinet secretaries as members of the Board. Except for five other members from the private sector, the rest of the 17-member Board are high-ranking officials of PhilHealth, SSS, GSIS, the National Anti-Poverty Commission, and the Civil Service Commission. Notably, the Board is headed by an alter-ego of the President as Chairman with four other cabinet secretaries, among others. The PhilHealth Board is structured in this manner to allow the President to use PhilHealth in advancing his public health agenda for general welfare. This composition of the Board turned out to be a disadvantage, especially under a corrupt leader, since a significant number of board members who make decisions that are influenced mainly by politics can steer the corporation towards a regime of governance dictated by patronage politics. Under this setup, the state health insurance program’s sustainability is traded off for the sustainability of the incumbent’s political power and influence.

Ideally, the Board sets the tone of the top. Its governance policies must be cascaded and practiced down to the lowest position in PhilHealth. Corruption, even at the lowest level in the organization, reflects the tone set by the Board. This situation means that the governing body has allowed the same to happen, probably because it lacks the moral ascendancy to exact accountability within the entire organization. It is equally guilty of corruption.

PhilHealth’s current setup makes it relatively easy for politics to be the main agenda in the corporation’s policies. An organization that is supposed to be governed by a competent Board detached from politics metamorphoses into something else every time there is a change of leadership in the country. While PhilHealth’s corruption issues and funding problems are the results of the past administration’s tinkering of the organization, the current administration’s leadership choice seems to aggravate the already poor governance system in the organization.

For the sake of strengthening our national health insurance program, it is high time that PhilHealth’s governance structure and management system must be overhauled. The right person should be appointed to the correct position. Putting a square peg in a round hole only makes the whole system even weaker. Above all, PhilHealth must be managed more like a business organization instead of being used to advance political ambitions. By ATTY GREG BORJA AUSTRAL, CPA