Cayetano wants agencies with huge trust funds audited

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SPEAKER Alan Peter Cayetano wants the House of Representatives to eventually look into the financial standings of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) and government financial institutions that have huge trust and investment funds like the Home Development Mutual Fund or the Pag-IBIG Fund.

Cayetano made the statement on the heels of the joint investigation by the House committees on public accounts and on good government and public accountability on alleged massive graft and corruption at Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

Cayetano proposed that all government agencies with huge trust or investment funds be also looked into for possible corruption activities.

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“I think it’s about time na right after the budget (deliberations), lahat ng ahensya ng gobyerno may trust fund o kaya merong investment fund na malalaki (I think it’s about time that right after the budget deliberations, all government agencies that have huge trust and investment funds be checked),” he told dzBB yesterday.

He identified the Pag-IBIG, Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Social Security System (SSS), and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

Cayetano said there is need to have an “expert team in financial forensics to look into such funds” like those from the Commission on Audit and the NBI.

Had such a team been organized, he said, shenanigans in PhilHealth would have been monitored and possibly, mitigated.

Cayetano said that in his more than 20 years in public service, it is only now that PhilHealth officials admitted that the state health insurer’s funds are getting depleted and that only a year is left in its actuarial life.

If the funds were used up because of the pandemic, we’ll understand and we’ll fill it up but if it was stolen and we’ll find out that it’s been going on unchecked for decades, it’s not only frightening, disconcerting, it’s unacceptable to our people),” he said in mixed Filipino and English.

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