MANILA - President Rodrigo Duterte's spokesman said Thursday he would seek a meeting with the chief executive and the head of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp (PhilHealth) over his claims of corruption within the state health insurance firm.

Harry Roque criticized anew PhilHealth President Ricardo Morales over the latter's supposed inaction to address corruption within the agency even as he asked for additional funds for the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law that the former authored.

"Ang inaasahan po natin, mag-iimbestiga, magtatanggal, magpaparusa. Pero wala po tayong nakitang ganyang ginawa si Gen. Morales," Roque said in a Palace press briefing.

(We expected him to investigate, remove, and impose penalties. But we didn't' see Gen. Morales do any of those.)

"Ang gagawin ko na lang po, siguro, manghihingi ako ng pagpupulong kay Presidente ng ganun ay maimbitahan si Gen. Morales at pupunta din po ako para masabi ko naman kung ano talaga ang aking damdamin," he added.

(I will ask for a meeting with the President so Gen. Morales can be invited and I will also attend so I can share what I really feel.)

• Roque to PhilHealth chief: What have you done to solve PhilHealth corruption?

Morales has said PhilHealth already acted on alleged anomalies, with "boxes and boxes of files" sent to government investigators, resulting in the filing of cases against 20 PhilHealth executives and 8employees.

"Maybe we should ask the NBI and the PACC, anong nangyari sa mga kasong iyon," Morales said in an interview Thursday on TeleRadyo.

(Maybe we should ask the NBI and the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission what happened to those cases.)

The agency's legal team is looking as well into 10,000 cases involving hospitals and medical professionals accused of false claims and other anomalies, he said.

Morales said PhilHealth is open to a third-party audit.

• PhilHealth chief tells Roque to go to court if he has evidence of alleged corruption