THE Quezon City Eye Center (QCEC), one of the private clinics that a Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) official included in the list of clinics that supposedly made fraudulent claims from the state corporation, on Friday filed disbarment, libel and civil cases against PhilHealth officials, led by its president and CEO, Alexander Padilla, for alleged harassment and damaging statements about QCEC.
The QCEC, through its mother company Eye Center Conglomerate Inc., filed disbarment cases before the Supreme Court against Padilla, and lawyer Jay Villegas, senior manager of PhilHealth’s Operations Audit Department, for allegedly harassing QCEC and depriving the clinic of payments due to the latter for the use of its facilities.
QCEC President Raymond P. Evangelista also filed libel charges before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office against Padilla and Kim Gariando, PhilHealth internal auditor and member of the government company’s audit department, for wrongly accusing QCEC of receiving more than P150 million in PhilHealth claims and allegedly resorting to illegal means to lure patients.
Evangelista, represented by lawyer Lorna Kapunan, is seeking P2.5 million each from Padilla and Gariando in moral and exemplary damages and attorney’s fees for the libel cases.
A P34-million civil case for damages for abuse of rights and breach of contract against PhilHealth, lawyers Padilla and Villegas, and Drs. Robert Louie So and Gariando was, likewise, filed by Evangelista before the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City.
The disbarment case against Padilla alleged that the PhilHealth CEO “unfairly persecuted and prejudged, and continues to persecute and prejudge, QCEC even if the investigation of QCEC is still ongoing.
“Not satisfied with depriving QCEC of its constitutional right to due process, Attorney Padilla launched a media campaign, announcing for the whole world to hear that QCEC is involved in fraudulent claims and that QCEC takes advantage of the already disadvantaged members of society for profit.
“Attorney Padilla, also using resources of PhilHealth, including the audit department and the legal department, committed acts of harassment against QCEC and deprived QCEC of payments for the actual use of its facilities by PhilHealth members.”
The libel charges on the other hand stemmed from Padilla’s allegedly erroneous pronouncements that QCEC earned more than P150 million in benefit payments in 2014 and that it has three physicians with more than 1,000 cases of fraud.
“Philhealth also stopped paying the pending claims of QCEC and announced the allegations and sanctions without giving the clinic due process and informing it of the charges before these were aired in the media through a news conference,” the complaint said.
The other respondents were included in the charges for their participation in what Evangelista described as Padilla’s “apparent vicious intent to tarnish the reputation of QCEC as a health provider facility and destroy QCEC’s business.”