By: Villamor C. Visaya Jr.
Published in its print edition on September 7-13, 2024
Whooping bonuses for the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation and other government-owned-and-controlled corporations have been repeatedly disallowed by the Commission on Audit (COA) in the past years.
So shocking that the Philhealth executives and workers have rewarded themselves with almost P200 million bonuses, extra compensation and allowances between 2000 to 2020.
Imagine? Private hospitals have been complaining of unpaid reimbursements and payments while members barely get ample benefits.
Philhealth is legally bound to manage the fund in a responsible and productive manner, and is under an absolute obligation to act for the benefit of the beneficiaries. “Charging the trust fund with illegal and unreasonable fees is a betrayal of that trust and confidence reposed by the members to the petitioner,” the COA says.
In the past years, those disallowed include the P75 million in welfare support assistance; P30 million in labor management relations gratuity; P5 million as signing bonus for the collective negotiation agreement; P2 million in cost of living allowance granted; million-peso reimbursements of seminar and conference fees; and extravagant fuel consumption of service vehicles.
True, Philhealth executives are not the Gods among themselves as they cannot fix their own compensation at the public’s expense. Auditors must be lauded when they ruled that Philhealth’s power to compensate is “not all-encompassing,” much more having the license for “unbridled discretion to determine compensation of its officers and employees.”
Aside from Philhealth, the Development Bank of the Philippines must also feel the heat of public’s tirades. The COA canceled P151.7 million extra compensation and other bonuses given to DBP officials from 2005 to 2006. These bonuses do not have legal basis and was really granted on the whims and caprices of the board of directors. Just see these figures and you will see how this government-owned bank spent millions out of their whims: At least P54.154 million in economic allowance (EA), P45.1 million in amelioration allowance, P38.26 million in officers’ allowance (OA) and P14.185-million merit increase.
If the audit reports will be confirmed, then these money-greedy executives of government-owned-and-controlled corporations must be ashamed of themselves.
Mahiya naman kayo sa balat niyo!#
