Former Health Secretary Janette Garin dismissed as a “huge lie” on Thursday the alleged diversion of a P10.69-billion fund from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to the Department of Health (DOH) because the fund was “nonexistent” in the first place. Garin addressed the issue of the alleged diversion of the fund meant for senior citizens to the construction of rural health clinics in 2015 after PhilHealth lodged graft complaints against her and former PhilHealth president Alexander Padilla. Garin said that when she became chair of PhilHealth, they curbed fraud and stopped payments to questionable transactions. ADVERTISEMENT“There were a lot of questionable things in the way the GOCC (government-owned and -controlled corporation) was being managed. She said the DOH and PhilHealth were informed by the current DBM that the P10.6-billion claim was actually unprogrammed fund, thus they did not have legal basis to justify its release to PhilHealth.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer May 31, 2018 22:41 UTC