While pushing for probe of the Department of Health (DOH) on its ‘deficiencies’ in the management of COVID-19 funds as reported by the Commission on Audit in its 2020 audit report, CIBAC Party-List lawmaker and House Deputy Speaker Bro. Eddie Villanueva can’t help but express immense dismay over the glaringly sluggish move of the agency in disbursing government funds aimed at urgently responding to the needs and benefits of COVID-19 frontliners.

“We are terribly disturbed on how the agency sluggishly, and with no apparent sense of urgency, disbursed some of its funds, particularly those intended for the allowance and hazard pay of our frontliners. We are in the midst of a pandemic, swift action is the name of game in winning the war against COVID-19.”

The 2020 COA report on the utilization of COVID-19 funds disclosed that a total of Php 67 billion COVID-19 pandemic response funds were ‘mismanaged’ by the DOH, with deficiencies ranging from non-compliance with pertinent laws to unused funds. Of these, funds amounting to Php 11.8 billion and Php 4.8 million intended for the provision of special risk allowance (SRA), active hazard duty pay (AHDP), financial assistance and other benefits to public and private health workers remained unreleased until end of December 2020 due to slow issuance of successive guidelines and orders and delayed downloading of cash allocation.

“These funds should have been released promptly to be used by thousands of our frontliners. Such well-timed release of assistance and benefits for our frontliners will spell the difference between inspiration or discouragement among our heroes,” adds Deputy Speaker Villanueva.

The CIBAC lawmaker also slams the perennial problem in the accumulation of unused, expired and nearly-expired drugs, medicines and other type of inventories, which in year 2020 amounted to almost Php 95 million.

“We already flagged this last year when we CIBAC filed a House Resolution calling for the investigation of the numerous audit reports citing that DOH keeps on procuring medicines and drugs more than what it needs and is able to use within the year. It’s really a must that we look into the procurement process of the agency to know why it always has a surplusage of medicines and drugs which are often stocked and not distributed, thus leading to wastage of public resources,” ends Deputy Speaker Villanueva.