PhilHealth may have found cure for COVID-19

Lawyer Josephus Jimenez, a fellow columnist in this paper, is so mad at the shenanigans in the state-run health insurance provider PhilHealth that he is asking for its immediate abolition. I am angry, too, for the same reasons that he is. But I will not join Atty. Jimenez in his call for its abolition. For I have found a redemptive value in PhilHealth that can be exploited for the good of this country in this time of the coronavirus pandemic.

 Based on records at PhilHealth, and on news reports that include hard-to-dispute statements from its top officials, the government agency could very well hold the secret to successfully beating the COVID-19 pandemic. So, instead of shutting it down, I would ask President Duterte to forcibly pry from PhilHealth officials how they were able to make more than 5,000 of its members live up to 130 years.

 This is not a joke. It is a matter of record at PhilHealth that more than 5,000 members are more than a hundred years old. Not only has this startling phenomenon been reported all over and remained undisputed, PhilHealth officials insist they have no records of these people being dead. Ergo, if there is no proving they are dead, then they must be alive and kicking, even at 130 years old.

 A person who manages to live up to 130 must be a very impregnable person indeed. He must be impervious to disease. The coronavirus that has ravaged more than 200 countries in the world could have finally met its match in such a person. And there are more than 5,000 of them who are members of PhilHealth.

 Health secretary Francisco Duque, who is the subject of mounting calls to resign for failing to halt the romp of COVID-19, may yet find a reprieve and get to keep his job. All he has to do is mount a massive and immediate contact-tracing to find where these 5,000 plus 130-year-olds are and extract DNA from them, with a mind to developing not just a vaccine for COVID-19 but against all diseases.

He can ask for help from interior and local government secretary Eduardo Año, who is doing such a great job promoting physical distancing that he now wants physical distancing even at home. Never has the world seen such enthusiasm, focus and dedication to the job of keeping people apart that if he can be persuaded to do the reverse, he might succeed in herding all 5,000 plus 130-year-olds together in one place for mass swabbing for DNA.

 If we find the secret to living up to 130 years and beyond, we can become the richest and most powerful country in the world. Both the United States and China would be groveling at our feet for a drop of PhilHealth anti-COVID and other diseases elixir. PhilHealth will give up its business of insuring health and become the exclusive producer and marketer of the greatest health product the world has ever seen.

A caveat, though, for the enemies of Duterte. The guy, who will likely get the first shot of PhilHealth's potion, could live to more than 130. He can declare himself president forever. And with everybody else living up to 130 years, who cares? We will be the happiest people on earth. PhilHealth will even make Section 12, Article VII of the Philippine Constitution irrelevant without any resort to a constitutional amendment. Long live, PhilHealth!