What's with all the concurrent OICs in PhilHealth?

While navigating PhilHealth's website in order to find information to answer some questions sent to this blog, we chanced upon their "About Us" and "Executive Officers" page here. we couldn't help but notice that there are an awful lot of Officers-in-Charge or OICs in PhilHealth.

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong about that. Corporations, private and public, designate OICs all the time as circumstances warrant. What got our attention was the fact that there are quite a lot of concurrent Officers-in-Charge, meaning officers who hold more than one position. Positions that are seemingly incompatible, as the lower designations report to the higher ones.

We find that somewhat puzzling and disturbing.

For example:

A Mr. William O. Chavez is the OIC Senior Vice President for the Operations Sector. He's also the OIC Area Vice President for South Luzon and Visayas. He's also the Regional Vice President for the Region VII PhilHealth Office.

Well, nothing against Mr. Chavez, presumably he's qualified for any of the positions mentioned above. But three concurrent high ranking positions? We're no organizational structure experts, but we presume a regional VP reports to an area VP who then reports to the operations SVP. It kind of misses the point if all those positions are only occupied by one individual. So where's the check and balance? But he's not the only one.

An Atty. Alexander A. Padilla is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. He's concurrently also the OIC Senior Vice President of the Legal Services Sector. So we can assume he gives himself legal advice by being PhilHealth's top lawyer and at the same time it's No. 2 highest ranking officer? They say "A lawyer who handles his own case has a fool for a client". We're not passing judgement folks. We just think something's wrong with this kind of setup. An EVP-COO has a great deal of responsibility. So does an SVP for Legal Services. Why concentrate these responsibilities in one person?

Then there's a Mr. Ramon F. Aristoza, Jr. He's the OIC Area Vice President for Mindanao. At the same time he's the Region XII Regional Vice President. So like Mr. Chavez above, he's the boss of himself.

We're not questioning the qualifications of the people named above. The presumption is that they are qualified otherwise they wouldn't be appointed in the first place. But to hold many simultaneous positions seems questionable from a management point of view.

The moment a person is given more than one important job, his or her effectiveness is reduced in half having to attend to more than one set of responsibilities. It only gets worse if one of the positions held reports to the other position held. It eliminates checks and balance. Why would a higher ranking position question the actions of a lower ranking position if the positions are occupied by only one person? How about approval of documents or requests? Do they countersign their own memos or approve their own requests? It's like being a basketball player and referee at the same time...it makes you ask, what's the point?

We've heard that PhilHealth's high ranking positions offer generous allowances. We wonder if these people receive all the allowances of the positions they occupy, or if that's even the reason why concurrent officers abound in PhilHealth's hierarchy. We hope not.

The possible conclusions one can derive from this setup is that either PhilHealth has a very top heavy organization chock full of surplus positions which really aren't necessary, or that it has a shortage of qualified managers, or that top management doesn't trust others within the organization which may be qualified to hold higher positions.

Of course, they can always claim that it's management prerogative, and of course, they'd be right in that respect. But it doesn't seem, to us at least, the proper way to run what is supposed to be a world-class organization.

You, the members and stakeholders of PhilHealth, be the judge of that.

Is PhilHealth violating our privacy?

We have received word from some of our sources that PhilHealth intends to provide a copy of their membership database to other government agencies. A memo was recently issued by the President of PhilHealth directing all their regional offices to extract the membership information and distribute it to other institutions.

Just what constitutes the membership database anyway? Basically all the information that you wrote down in your membership form is included in the membership database. This includes your address, telephone number, gender, date of birth, your dependents, civil status and your employer. We as members do not appreciate our personal information being given away to just anyone without our knowledge or permission as it violates our privacy and it is no different from giving away our identities to a strangers.

As a registering agency, PhilHealth should ensure the safety and appropriate use of the information they capture. If sharing this information is indeed necessary, wouldn't it be wise to have a non-disclosure agreement with the other party to ensure that only the right information will be provided to external parties and that the information will only be used for the purposes intended, nothing more and nothing less? In other companies, information is treated securely which is why information is protected from being leaked outside. Why then would PhilHealth be giving out their database, more so, our personal information without the necessary precautions?

We are not saying that data sharing is a bad thing. Given that it's supposed to be a straight government to government agreement, there is nothing irregular with sharing the membership data as long as there are reassurances that the data will not be copied by parties outside the government where it can be abused. Due diligence to protect our data should be ensured.

Just to be clear, we are just saying that PhilHealth should only provide information that is necessary to accomplish the goals it sets with other entities and that such information should be guarded via non-disclosure agreements to prevent unscrupulous parties misusing our personal information. They should, specify in writing, what information is to be shared, the parameters of how the information is to be used, and an assurance that the data will not be shared with outsiders.

In this day and age, knowledge is power. PhilHealth ought to be careful whom they trust our personal information with.

We just hope that PhilHealth takes the proper precautions before agreeing to distribute the data.

PhilHealth Misses the Mark

An unflattering assessment of PhilHealth by Malaya can be found here:

'Conservative' and 'sluggish' PhilHealth misses healthcare target

We, in all our optimism, would like to think that this article is exaggerated, but unfortunately, according to a lot of insiders, most of the allegations mentioned have echoes of  truth ringing about them. Dare we say, some are even spot on.

Like the "loan shark SVP charging 3% a month". Honestly, a senior officer in any government office should never put himself or herself in a position to make money from his subordinates. It just doesn't seem ethical or moral. How can an officer claim to be objective in deciding or giving recommendations over money matters, such as, say, release of employee benefits, if he or she stands to personally gain or lose from such recommendation or decision?

"The president would rather travel than stay in the office". Not only would the president be unable to perform his functions if he is out of the office, government funds also tend to be wasted on  unnecessary travel expenses. I guess it isn't the just the general's wives who get to be jetsetters.

Maybe a Senate probe at this time may just be the shot in the arm that PhilHealth needs in order for it to clean up its act.