Duterte on ‘self-destruct’, attacks on senators just a ‘distraction’ — Gordon

FILE PHOTO: Senator Richard Gordon and President Rodrigo Duterte. INQUIRER FILES

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Richard Gordon on Saturday appeared unfazed by President Rodrigo Duterte’s fresh attacks on him and on other senators.

Duterte, in his taped briefing aired on Saturday, said he intends to find out “what’s wrong” with the senators who are conducting a Senate probe on the alleged overpriced medical supplies bought by the government.

He said he will start with Gordon, who chairs the Senate blue ribbon committee.

Gordon, in response, said Duterte’s tirades are just “distractions.”

“You are on self-destruct by doing this distracting methodology, Mr. President. Kaya mag-ingat din kayo, because lahat may katapusan,” Gordon said over DWIZ.

(Be careful, because everything has an end.)

“Alam ko namang dine-distract niyo lang ang isyu,” he added. “Ginagawa niyo ang lahat ng batikos para ma distract kami, para sasagot kami sa inyo.”

(I know that you are just distracting the issue. You are doing all of the criticism to distract us, so we will answer you.)

Senator Franklin Drilon, who is involved in the Senate probe, said Duterte’s attack on him is “old news” while saying that the President’s allegations are just a “distraction.”

The Senate blue ribbon committee is currently investigating the purchase of alleged overpriced medical supplies by the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management on behalf of the Department of Health in 2020.

Philippine Red Cross

Gordon also answered Duterte’s threat to halt transactions with the Philippine Red Cross if it does not submit its financial records for scrutiny by the Commission on Audit (COA).

READ: Duterte threatens to stop gov’t transactions with Red Cross

The COA however, earlier said it has no jurisdiction to audit the PRC as the latter is a non-government humanitarian organization, but Duterte insists that COA can audit PRC because it has been receiving financial aid from the government.

“Sasabihin ititigil po yan, nasa inyo yan Mr. President, hindi po namin hiningi yan, kung gusto niyo malugi ang Red Cross its up to you, pero ayoko sagutin yan dahil ang isyu nandito,” Gordon said.

(He said that he will stop the transactions, it’s up to you Mr. President, if you want Red Cross to be bankrupt it’s up to you, but I don’t want to answer that because there is another issue here.)

He also noted that the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) still owes PRC some P600 million for COVID-19 tests.

The PRC leads in terms of COVID-19 testing output nationwide after conducting more than 4 million tests or about 25 percent of the entire tests conducted in the country.

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