Solon flags DOH’s P11B advance payment for new hospital
A House leader wanted a House probe into the alleged advanced payment made by the DOH-Research Center for Tropical Medicine (RITM) to the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC) for the construction of Infectious Disease Hospital.
According to House Committee on Public Accounts chairman and Probinsiyano Ako Rep. Jose “Bonito” Singson Jr., the PITC has the budget amounting to P11 billion since 2017.
Singson said the issue should be included in the hearing of the House on the alleged mismanagement of COVID-19 funds of the DOH amounting to P67 billion based on the 2020 annual audit of the Commission on Audit (COA).
The solon will ask COA officials to also discuss the 2020 AAR of PITC which has failed to deliver the procurement requests .
According to COA, the PITC failed to construct in 2017 the proposed hospital for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases although it has received from the DOH-Research Institute for Tropical Medicine a total P126-million for the project.
The P126-million is part of the P11 billion that DOH and other government agencies transferred to the PITC for various procurement activities, the year former Laguna board member Dave Almarinez was appointed by President Duterte to head the government-owned trading firm.
“The PITC said it is ready to open bids for projects worth P3.228 billion this year, thus, saw no obligation to return the money to the concerned national government agencies,” Singson said.
The DOH-RITM has also advanced to the PITC over P826.71 million for the design and construction of the proposed National Reference Laboratory Building that was expected to provide guidance and support to clinical laboratories for microbiological analysis and in the surveillance of infectious diseases.
“The COA reports gave us a glaring yet sickening visual of how the PITC squandered an opportunity for our country to have a better fighting chance against the COVID-19 pandemic which started in 2020, or three years after the trading firm got the money to implement the projects,” noted Singson.
The party-list solon said Almarinez must clarify what his firm did to the P11 billion that various government firms and agencies transferred in order to finance important supplies, equipment and infrastructure projects since 2017.
Aside from vital public health supplies, equipment and infrastructure, the PITC also was unable to deliver some P668.21 million worth of body armour for enlisted personnel of the Philippine Army.
Supplies, fiber optic system and other technical equipment were likewise not procured by the PITC despite receiving from 2017 to 2018 over P1.08 billion from the Department of Information and Communications.
