Anti-terror law should be applied to the fullest in Sulu

HOW ironic that Ricardo Morales was removed as president and chief executive officer of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) — ostensibly for health reasons but the real reason is corruption — while the allegedly biggest thief of them all at the state-owned insurer, Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd, remains at his post.

Duque, as Health department chief, is the ex- officio chairman of PhilHealth.

Every corrupt deal, every payment for “ghost” patients, every overpricing of hospital bills and evedry "upcasing" of ailments (say, from the common cold to pneumonia) that happened at the government health insurance firm as presumably known to Duque.

If Duque didn’t know, then he’s tanga ( dimwitted). Many people would rather be called corrupt than a dimwit.

The government- run health insurance firm has been bled dry because of the various scams committed by its officials.

Because of Duque’s alleged involvement in the plunder at PhilHealth, the Senate Committee of the Whole has recommended the filing of graft and malversation charges against him.

Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto 3rd, chairman of the Senate Committee of the Whole, signed the recommendation.

Sotto said that PhilHealth has been “bled dry” by the thieves at the state insurer.

The den of thieves that is PhilHealth has P111 billion in liabilities and P109 billion in equities, or a debt-to-equity ratio of 1 to 0.99, according to Sotto.

“This showed that [ PhilHealth] does not have a sound financial condition to meet its liabilities,” he said.

Duque cannot claim ignorance of the corruption at PhilHealth because he has been in and out of the agency as a result of his appointment as Health secretary by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and President Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte.

Duque’s plundering ways at PhilHealth have been developed through the years of serving two presidents.

Duque’s masterstroke was in devising a way to help in Gloria’s presidential campaign by enlisting millions of poor people in the agency’s national health insurance plan.

To many observers, that scheme seemed tantamount to buying votes for Gloria.

In hindsight, we now know that scheme contributed to Gloria winning the election over the more popular candidate, action star Fernando Poe Jr.

(I’m not saying that Gloria won over FPJ because she cheated; she really won that election by a wide margin. Being a former president’s daughter, she knew how to rub the masses the right way.)

There is no telling that Gloria recommended Duque to Digong and the latter can’t dismiss Duque because he owes so much to Gloria when he was Davao City mayor.

***

The appointment of former National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Dante Gierran to replace Morales is the best thing to happen to PhilHealth.

Gierran, a lawyer and certified public accountant, is a self- effacing, silent worker who can make use of his sleuthing skills from the NBI in ferreting out corruption at PhilHealth.

Gierran, who quit the NBI after reaching the mandatory retirement age, was first offered the job of customs commissioner but he turned it down, saying he might be stepping on many people’s toes.

He accepted the PhilHealth job because the President had probably insisted.

Gierran and the President are both from Davao City.

His former colleagues at the NBI told me Gierran was one of the most hardworking and honest directors of the bureau.

If he rejected the post as customs commissioner because he didn’t want to step on many people’s toes, Gierran might be stepping on Duque’s toes.

Duque’s tentacles at PhilHealth are extensive.

Gierran should be careful in dealing with Duque, his immediate boss.

*** Presidential Anti- Corruption Commission Chairman Dante Jimenez was reported to have backed Gierran’s appointment.

Jimenez, not to be outdone by others, described Gierran as a man of integrity.

Jimenez’s encomium of Gierran is misplaced because everybody knows Gierran’s integrity.

If Jimenez had been doing his job, the corruption at PhilHealth would have been exposed after his appointment as chief government watchdog.

***

There is no need to place Sulu under martial law after the recent twin bombings in its capital Jolo that killed 14 people, mostly soldiers, and wounded 75 others.

The Duterte administration may want to hasten the implementation of the Anti- Terrorism Law passed last month that empowers the government to arrest terrorist suspects without a court warrant.

If the Anti- Terrorism Law is carried out, many local government officials can be arrested and held indefinitely for coddling Abu Sayyaf terrorists.

It’s public knowledge in Sulu that most local officials are blood relatives or relatives by affinity of most Abu Sayyaf terrorists.

Sulu is a small community, and everybody knows everybody else because they belong to a Moro ethnic group, the Tausug.

The national authorities should arrest and detain Sulu officials who know the whereabouts of their Abu Sayyaf relatives or are coddling them outright.

During the hostage-taking of 21 foreigners who were kidnapped in Sipadan, a diving resort in Sabah, the Abu Sayyaf made many people in Sulu happy.

If the Abu Sayyaf demanded a certain amount of ransom for a foreign hostage, that amount would be tripled or quadrupled because there were many “middlemen” or intermediaries.

For example, if the Abu Sayyaf demanded, say, P600,000 for “Hostage X,” the amount would be increased to P1.6 million, or three times the ransom demand.

Why? Because intermediaries chosen by local officials to deal with the kidnappers upped the ante to earn money for themselves and their benefactors.

I was told that a national official who was sent to Sulu to oversee the negotiations with the Abu Sayyaf also received a windfall from the ransom and became filthy rich.

The Duterte administration should, by now, know how to deal with the Abu Sayyaf the unorthodox way.

If the Abu Sayyaf kidnaps or kills innocent civilians, his relatives should suffer the same fate as the victims.

When retired Lt. Gen. Salvador Mison was brigade commander in Sulu during the hijacking of a merchant ship, he warned the hijackers that if the passengers and crew were hurt, he would do the same to the hijackers’ relatives.

Mison showed the hijackers that he had in his custody their parents, siblings, wives, children and other relatives.

The hijackers released all the ship’s passengers and crew unharmed in exchange for the release of their relatives by Mison.

Why doesn’t the Duterte government take a leaf from Mison’s method?

The Tausugs admire their enemies who match their ruthlessness.

My father, Ramon Sr., who was about three decades ahead of Mison in Sulu, was able to pacify the Tausugs in the towns where he was assigned because he dared to match their ruthlessness.

For every soldier that a Tausug outlaw — there were no insurgents at the time yet — killed, my father and soldiers would kill 10 of the bandit’s relatives.