Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque called on the leadership of Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to punish those who are involved in the anomalies within the agency.

"I call Atty. (Dante) Gierran, why only one official of PhilHealth resigned because of the anomaly? Do you mean those who are involved in previous anomalies are still there and no one among them deserves to be fired? that is very unbelievable," he said on Monday.

Roque made his call as he reiterated that PhilHealth should pay all their debts to the private hospitals as soon as possible. The debts reportedly reach P 2 billion.

"Again, I reiterate, there should be cooperation, and PhilHealth should pay immediately. Lack of funds is not a reason. I will be the first to tell you, the funds of PhilHealth will not run out, we cannot avoid anomalies but for me we should litigate those anomalous claims," he said.

"Those who submit fictitious claims and anomalous claims should be litigated. But we should not use the blacklisting and the threat of blacklisting because I will repeat that Universal Health Care cannot be implemented if only the government hospitals will provide health services especially during the pandemic,: he added.

Last Saturday, hospital and physician organizations in the country threatened to disengage with the PhilHealth after the agency issued a circular suspending the payments to the hospitals and health care providers claims that are subject to investigation.

"This threat to stop providing services and disengage to PhilHealth, that has the potential of derailing Universal Health Care," said Roque.

"I am saying this now because we are in a time of pandemic, we need utmost cooperation and Universal Health Care should be implemented because this is really the answer in the time of pandemic," he added. Robina Asido/DMS