House Appropriations Committee holds hearing on DOH budget utilization over the past years, COVID-19 response

Transcript

00:00Meanwhile, in today's House Appropriations hearing on the DOH and PhilHealth, former

00:05Health Secretary Francisco Duque III let the cat out of the bag on former President Rodrigo

00:11Duterte, personally instructing him to transfer the purchase and funds for PPEs to the Procurement

00:18Service of the Department of Budget and Management, or PSDBM, during the pandemic.

00:24Our Mela Lesmora tells us more.

00:43The current and former secretaries of the Department of Health faced one another during

00:48today's hearing of the House Committee on Appropriations on the agency's budget utilization

00:53over the past years and their COVID-19 response.

00:56At the very beginning, former Health Secretary Francisco Duque III immediately defended himself

01:01and maintained that the transfer of over P41 billion of the DOH to PSDBM for the purchase

01:08of COVID-19 supplies was necessary and legal despite facing graft charges over it.

01:14Given the severity of the public health emergency, we at the IATF and NTF deemed it best to rely

01:20on the expertise of the PSDBM and its network of suppliers for sourcing of the much-needed

01:26PPEs along with other essential goods and services for emergency response.

01:32We would not have stood a fighting chance without the first tranches of PPEs, which

01:37was a lifeline for our health workers.

01:40The congressman emphasized it is important for the details to be clear, especially when

01:44it involves public funds.

01:46Therefore, some lawmakers scrutinized who ordered Duque to carry out the procurement

01:51and fund transfer.

01:52Publicly, this was made by the president in our meetings in weekly or talk to the people.

02:22The former secretary emphasized, although former President Rodrigo Duterte gave the

02:26order on the transfer of duties and funds from the DOH to the DBM procurement services,

02:31it was well within his authority to make and issue such decisions and directives.

02:36Therefore, for him, he did not commit illegal acts.

02:40Patungkul po sa Ombudsman case, ako po ay inatasan na magsubmit ng motion for reconsideration

02:50I'm just waiting Madam Chairperson, your honors, for the action of the Ombudsman on my MR.

02:58So everything, my legal team, has already submitted all the documents to support and

03:09counter the baseless allegations that were filed against my person.

03:18Meanwhile, current and former officials of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation

03:22or PhilHealth also attended the hearing.

03:25One of the issues lawmakers brought up was the excessively high cost of COVID-19 testing

03:30in 2020.

03:31But the agency responded, the high price was due to inadequate supply at the outset but

03:36eventually dropped multiple times as time went by.

03:39As of April 14, 2020, the price was Php 8,150.

03:47And then on June 25, 2020, the price was brought down to Php 3,409.

03:59And then on November 30, 2021, the price was brought down to Php 2,800.

04:09And then on May 26, 2021, the price was further reduced to Php 2,287.

04:21And then on November 30, 2021, the price was Php 2,450.