More than so-called “emergency powers,” President Rodrigo Duterte will have to rely on strong political will to cleanse the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) of scalawags, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said Friday.
Lacson said Duterte can start showing such political will by firing Health Secretary and PhilHealth ex-officio chairman Francisco Duque III, whose resignation he and fellow senators had sought due to gross incompetence.
“More than ’emergency powers’ to reorganize PhilHealth, what the President needs is real, honest-to-goodness, strong political will first,” Lacson said in a statement, referring to suggestions to give Duterte such powers to overhaul the scandal-ridden insurer.
“For a start, he can fire its ex-officio chairman and replace him with someone even with little above-average leadership traits, competence, honesty and integrity – and who won’t wash his hands but takes full responsibility for what PhilHealth does or fails to do,” he added.
Emergency powers to reorganize Philhealth? Try real, honest-to-goodness, strong political will first. For a start, fire its ex-officio chairman.
— PING LACSON (@iampinglacson) September 3, 2020
Earlier this week, Lacson and fellow senators in the Committee of the Whole included in their recommendation to the President to replace Duque with someone who has “stronger will to fight corruption.”
On Friday, Lacson also noted special powers may not be the solution as PhilHealth is a creation of a law passed by Congress.
As such, he said the President “has no statutory power to reorganize the agency, so he actually needs an act of Congress to delegate to him such power or authority.”
He added that if the President’s intention is to cleanse PhilHealth of scalawags and misfits, “he may not need that delegated authority anymore as he has the Philippine National Police, National Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice and other instrumentalities of government at his disposal.”
Meanwhile, Lacson said Duterte has no time to lose in exercising his political will.
“No matter how good our country’s economic managers are, if our health department is below the level of incompetence in the middle of this pandemic, we will all sink before we can even start to swim,” he said.
No matter how good our country’s economic managers are, if our health department is below the level of incompetence in the middle of this pandemic, we will all sink before we can even start to swim.
— PING LACSON (@iampinglacson) September 3, 2020
The post Ito ang kailangan, ASAP! Ping stresses political will, not emergency powers, needed to cleanse PhilHealth first appeared on Latest Philippine politics news today.
Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)
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