The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) said Thursday night that 43 of its senior officials have submitted their courtesy resignations or have retired.
“As of October 8, 2020, a total of 43 senior officers have already responded to PhilHealth PCEO Atty. Dante A. Gierran’s September 30 memo implementing a 2019 Board Resolution directing all senior officers from Salary Grade 26 and above to tender their courtesy resignations,” said the state-insurer in a statement.
PhilHealth said a total of 27 officials from its central and regional offices had submitted their respective courtesy resignations, while 16 officials chose to retire.
Recently, PhilHealth CEO and president Dante Gierran released a memorandum calling all PhilHealth officials under Salary Grade 26 to submit their courtesy resignations.
“This is also pursuant to President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive to cleanse the Corporation of dishonest people, thus giving PhilHealth a fresh start to stay true to its mandate,” the agency said last October 2.
Palace spokesperson Harry Roque earlier those who are running clean departments need not fear Gierran’s resignation order.
43 PhilHealth execs resigned, retired
“Yung mga walang pananagutan, yung mga hindi nangurakot, wala dapat ikatakot dahil alam ko naman po na yung desisyon ni Attorney Gierran kung sino ang mananatili ay ibabase niya sa ebidensiya,” he said.
In an interview with CNN Philippines, Roque also said that Gierran probably thinks that the courtesy resignation of senior officials is “the fastest way that he can reorganize” the agency.
“Attorney Gierran knows that he does not have much time. And that’s why I think it was important for him to request that all the senior executives file their courtesy resignations because that’s the fastest way that he can reorganize,” Roque said.
“We’re confident, though, that he will have very good information that would guide him on whose resignation to accept. I hope too that he will be guided by the Senate findings as well as the findings of Task Force PhilHealth,” he added.
Last month, Roque said President Rodrigo Duterte gave Gierran until December 2020 to “clean up” the state insurer’s alleged corruption.
“The deadline given to Attorney Gierran is a deadline to clean up the organization. File all the cases that need to be filed, suspend, terminate, whatever you need to do to cleanse the ranks of PhilHealth,” Roque said.