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A ranking congressman called out the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) for submitting “deceiving” data on the total insurance claims of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to the House of Representatives.

On Tuesday, August 18, House committee on public accounts chair Mike Defensor called out overseas program senior manager Chona Yap after it became clear during the hearing that her office included in its computation for total OFW claims the amount spent shouldering the medical expenses of their dependents in the Philippines. 

Living in the Philippines, these OFW dependents – anybody who may have listed their parents or family members as OFWs – are PhilHealth members on their own. So listing their claims as OFW claims made it appear like the overseas workers claimed much more than what they had contributed, Defensor pointed out.

Yap initially said PhilHealth had already collected P1.02 billion from 320,000 OFW contributors in 2019, but the total cost of their insurance claims was at P1.86 billion.

But upon looking at PhilHealth’s data himself, Defensor realized that the P1.86 billion represented the insurance claims of the OFWs plus their relatives back home.

“Ms Chona Yap, alam ’nyo po medyo nagkamali ako kanina, ha? Dahil ang sabi ’nyo ho doon sa data ’nyo, maraming OFW ang mga nagkaroon ng claims, mas marami ang claims nila sa contribution. Ang lumalabas batay… sa lahat ng mga nagtanong, eh ’yong data ’nyo pala mga beneficiaries nila, ’yon ’yong 70%. Tama po ba?” asked Defensor.

(Ms Chona Yap, you know I committed an error earlier, because you said your data shows a lot of OFWs had made claims, that they made more claims than their contributions. But it is now apparent…based on all the interpellations, that 70% of your data actually covers the dependents. Is that correct?) 

Yap said yes, prompting Defensor to accuse her of giving misleading data to lawmakers.

“Hindi pa rin ho natin klaro…kung sino ’yong na’ndito sa Pilipinas, at palagay ko, karamihan diyan nandito sa Pilipinas. Medyo ano po, Ms Yap ah, medyo deceiving po ’yong inyong datos na isinubmit po sa amin,” Defensor said. 

(It’s still not clear…who among them are here in the Philippines, and I believe most of them are here in the country. Ms Yap, the data you gave us is quite deceiving.)

“Kahit hindi po ’yan nag-OFW at nagbayad sila (Even if they didn’t become OFWs yet still paid their contributions), they can avail [themselves] of the same benefits that you are claiming now,” added the Anakalusugan congressman.

Yap would later concede that the P1.86 billion worth of claims did cover both the OFWs and their dependents.

“Ang nakalagay po dito, sa OFW contribution na P1.02 billion, ang availment ng OFW and their dependents is P1.86 billion. So may PhillHealth subsidy po na P844 million,” she said. 

(What’s stated here is that OFW contributions are at P1.02 billion, with the availment of OFWs and their dependents at P1.86 billion. So there is a PhilHealth subsidy worth P844 million.)

On Tuesday, the House committee on public accounts and committee on good government and public accountability resumed their investigation into the multiple corruption allegations thrown at PhilHealth. 

Tuesday’s hearing zeroed in on the PhilHealth premiums of OFWs, who went up in arms in April after the state health insurer used the Universal Health Care Law (UHC) to justify increasing their contributions to 3% of their salaries, up from last year’s 2.75% rate.

Following the public backlash, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered PhilHealth to make the OFW contributions voluntary while the coronavirus pandemic is ongoing. 

OFW advocate and Blas F. Ople Policy Center head Susan Ople appealed to Congress to suspend the implementing rules and regulations of the UHC for overburdening OFWs during the pandemic. – Rappler.com