Duterte tells Duque: Not time for you to resign; I have full trust in you

September 8, 2020

President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday that this is not the time for embattled Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to quit from his post.

In a televised message, Duterte said he has "full trust" with Duque, who was recommended to be charged with malversation of public funds by the Senate, which conducted an investigation on the alleged massive corruption in the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.

"Secretary Duque, this is not the time for you to resign," he said in front of the Health chief.

"I have heard stories about you going to resign. I have full trust in you," he added.

Duterte said he would wait for the result of the investigation being conducted by the inter-agency task force led by Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra over the alleged multi-billion anomalies in the state health insurer.

"There's an investigation going on. Let it be if you are not guilty of corruption...well, let us see on what could be your negligence. But you know, if you handle a big organization...I had a chance when I became mayor and then president. You will really be negligent because sometimes you cannot go after them," Duterte said.

Duque, who apparently became emotional for the support to him by the President, lamented why he was being dragged into the controversy.

The Health chief is the ex-officio of PhilHealth.

Guevarra, who was also present, said he is eyeing to submit the report of the task force to Duterte by Monday next week.

"So by September 14, Mr. President, that’s on Monday, we should be able to submit to you our report and our recommendations including the possible filing of administrative and/or criminal cases against persons in PhilHealth who we shall find to be probably responsible for certain anomalies or irregularities," he said.

But he said the building up of cases could require them more time because they have to gather actual evidence and procure the necessary witnesses to support the complaints.

"So we are hoping that we’ll be able to file a few of these cases before we submit our report to you or maybe even after, we’ll just recommend in our report to you the filing of these cases. But the actual filing may happen, Mr. President, after the submission of the report because of this need to make sure that any complaint that we are going to file will be backed up by competent evidence," he said.

With the appointment also of former National Bureau of Investigation chief Dante Gierran as new PhilHealth president and CEO, Guevarra said it would be much easier for the composite teams of the task force to continue the investigation.

Guevarra used to be Gierran's immediate head since NBI is an attached agency of the Department of Justice. Celerina Monte/DMS