PhilHealth personnel ordered to pay back P6.35-M cash birthday gifts in 2014
MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Audit (COA) has ordered officials and employees of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to pay back the cash birthday gifts they received in 2014 amounting to P6.35 million.
The COA disallowed the cash gifts for lack of legal basis, and deemed them as double compensation.
In its appeal, the PhilHealth argued that birthday gifts in the form of cash benefits were not new. It asserted that it had autonomy as a government financial institution, and was entitled to enjoy the same independence other GFIs had.
However, the COA said these arguments had already been considered and overruled.
“The grounds raised by PhilHealth are mere rehash of the arguments in it petition for review, which have been considered and judiciously passed upon in the decision,” the COA said.
State auditors also invoked the 2022 PhilHealth vs. COA Supreme Court ruling, where it was declared that the payment of birthday gifts to personnel lacked legal basis, since it was not listed among allowable non-integrated allowances in the compensation and position classification law.
“If only to reiterate, the extent of PhilHealth’s power to fix the compensation of its personnel and determine the grant of allowances and benefits to its officers and employees is not absolute and is at all times subject to existing rules and regulations,” the COA said.
The COA held the following PhilHealth personnel liable:
- Former PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Alexander Padilla
- Comptrollership Department senior manager Ann Marie San Andres
- Accounting and Internal Control Division chief Hannah Lorraine Dalisay
- Fiscal Controller IV Juvy Balolong
- Budget Division chief Marilou Navarroza
- Fiscal Controller IV Willie Bumacod
- Senior manager Arsenia Torres
- Human Resource Department officer-in-charge Jonathan Mangaoang
- HR Department division chief Alejandro Dennis Lim
- Fiscal Controller III Theresa Tindoy
- Fiscal Controller III Rommel Reyes
- Fiscal Controller III Dalisay Satrain
- 635 employees (payees/recipients)
– Rappler.com