No, a Philippine lawmaker has not been ordered to pay back 160 million pesos to the government
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 30, 2018 at 21:00
- 1 min read
- By AFP Philippines
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Agency workers were awarded 164 million pesos in bonuses by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) board, on which Hontiveros previously served.
The online post says she was ordered by the watchdog, the Commission on Audit (COA), to return the money to the government.
Its headline says: “For the 3rd time, COA Orders Hontiveros to return P160M PhilHealth Money”.
The COA in January ordered in this and this ruling that PhilHealth officials return the money on the grounds the board did not have the power to grant such bonuses.
However, the COA did not order Hontiveros to pay back the funds.
“There is no truth that COA PHIC (auditor assigned to PhilHealth) ordered Sen. Hontiveros the return of P163.85 million in bonuses,” Karen Recio, a public information officer with the COA, told AFP in an e-mail.
The post carrying the false claim has been shared more than 12,000 times to Facebook groups with combined followers of at least 2.6 million people, according to data from social media monitoring platform CrowdTangle.
Most of the groups and pages that shared it support President Rodrigo Duterte. Hontiveros is a known Duterte critic.
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