(UPDATE) 'AS a physician, I see PhilHealth is... marred with illnesses, and it's my job to treat it,' the newly appointed president and chief executive officer of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., Edwin Mercado, said Wednesday, as he vowed to expand member benefits and speed up the digitization of processes at the state health insurer.

'The first thing I need to do [is to] study carefully what are the processes that need to be changed to implement the directive of our president, to continue and extend PhilHealth benefits,' he said in a press briefing at the Palace.