PhilHealth whistleblowers ‘wrongfully’ charged

Some influential individuals could be behind the arrest of the two whistleblowers in the multi-billion peso Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) scam.

This was the theory raised by former Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, counsel for Edwin Roberto and Leizel Santos-de Leon who blew the lid off the P154-billion ghost PhilHealth claims.

Roque branded the arrest as a “travesty and mockery of justice.”

“This is really a machination by those who deserve to be jailed to silence them,” Roque told the Daily Tribune in a phone interview. “I think there’s someone behind it to clear themselves.”

The two witnesses were former employees of WellMed Dialysis Center, owned by Bryan Sy.

“There are really no other evidence that releases were made to the dead but them,” Roque said.

De Leon and Roberto claimed that WellMed collected claims from PhilHealth using the names of patients who had died or discontinued the treatment

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) last June filed 17 counts of estafa charges against Sy and seven other WellMed executives.

The witnesses were provisionally accepted in the government’s Witness Protection Program. They were removed from the program when a Quezon City court dismissed the case for wrong venue that prompted the refiling before a metropolitan trial court.

Roque maintained that his clients were wrongfully charged.

“I maintain that the estafa case is really wrong because PhilHealth funds are not private funds,” Roque said.

At the same time, Roque lashed at PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Ricardo Morales for sitting on his request for documents to file the right case of malversation against those liable.

“During our last meeting, the prosecutor general said that we should be the one filing the complaint, not the DOJ. But Morales is yet to provide us with the documents we requested more than a month ago,” said Roque.

Meantime, Roque said he would ask the Office of the Ombudsman if protection could be provided to his clients.

“I will be meeting the Ombudsman to see if it can provide witness protection because the Office of the Ombudsman also has the power,” Roque said.

Roberto and De Leon were arrested by elements of the Quezon City Police District Thursday night in Novaliches. A bail of P140,000 was recommended for the temporary liberty of Roberto and De Leon.