(INQUIRER file photo / Niño Jesus Orbeta)
MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives has set the congressional inquiry into the supposed deficiencies in handling of the P67-billion funds of the Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday, August 17.
Ako Partylist Rep. Jose Singson Jr., who chairs the House Committee on Public Accounts, said that during the inquiry, the Commission on Audit (COA) will brief lawmakers in the lower chamber regarding the deficiencies it found in the handling of DOH funds for COVID-19 response.
Speaker Lord Allan Velasco earlier asked for the briefing “to get the facts straight from COA” especially as the funds in question were among those allocated under the Bayanihan laws that Congress passed last year.”
Aside from COA, DOH officials are also invited to attend the briefing.
“The briefing would also serve as a venue for the DOH to explain and account for the pandemic funds mentioned in the COA report,” Velasco said.
Velasco added that the lower chamber will hear the side of the DOH before making any conclusions.
PITC, P126-M hospital project probe
Singson, meanwhile, said that issues related to the activities of state-run Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC) should also be tackled during the inquiry.
The lawmaker said that the 2020 annual audit report released by COA showed that 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 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,”Singson said.