WE are now in general community quarantine, but the landscape has not changed. I will stick to my usual title.
As reports of daily infections come they are accompanied by reports of ingrained long-life corruption in agencies, which ironically enough should do much to help control the coronavirus pandemic in our midst. The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) is now tarred and feathered as an absolutely big-time highway robbery institution. The highway robbery that bestows certain hospitals with breathtakingly mysterious huge sums granted without liquidating the previous huge sums received, while other less favored hospitals wait to be reimbursed for what they have already spent. The equipment that is overpriced because there is money to pay for high prices. I do not have to draw the picture, you have seen it time and again. What is even more mysterious is that the “whiff” of corruption that has become a stench has only brought on empty threats of investigation, court cases and jail time, all of these so far not pursued in real time. No need to bring in the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes, the dialysis centers and the record-breaking cases of pneumonia that seem to afflict everybody in hospital, according to PhilHealth payment demands.
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