Grab chance to explain use of P67-B COVID response funds, Duque urged
HEALTH Secretary Francisco Duque was urged to attend the House briefing on the alleged mismanagement of COVID-19 funds amounting to P67 billion.
Deputy speaker and Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said aside from the lawmakers, Duque should also listen to the explanation of the Commission on Audit (COA) on how the auditors arrived at their findings.
Speaker Lord Allan Velasco requested the COA to brief the House members on the findings. The hearing will be spearheaded by the House Committee on Public Accounts.
According to Rodriguez, this will be Duque’s opportunity to explain the alleged deficiencies in the management of the funds and prove that it did not go to corruption.
He said as far as Cagayan de Oro City is concerned, “we are thankful and happy with Secretary Duque’s and Secretary Carlito Galvez’s responses to our requests for assistance in fighting the pandemic, especially the recent surge in Covid-19 and Delta variant cases.”
He said the pandemic response task force has delivered additional vaccines and hospital ventilators to Cagayan de Oro.
Rodriguez added that he wants Duque to particularly address repeated complaints on the payment of benefits Congress had granted nurses and other health workers under the Bayanihan 1 and 2 laws.
He noted that the Department of Budget and Management has recently announced that it has released P9 billion for the special risk allowance and hazard pay of government and private health care personnel.
In a related story, the Makabayan bloc said briefing is not enough as the progressive solons proposed legislative inquiry on the grace inefficiency, gross incompetence and criminal negligence of the DOH officials.
The Makabayan bloc, composed of Bayan Muan, Gabriela, Kabataan and Act-Teachers Party-lists, filed a House resolution for the concerned committee to open an investigation on how the allocated funds were being utilized by the DOH.
