Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra. —Inquirer/Marianne Bermudez
MANILA, Philippines — Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra has admitted that the past Department of Health (DOH) administration’s decision to leave procurement of face masks and face shields to the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) was a precarious call.
Guevarra in an ambush interview on Monday, after the hearing of the House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations, explained that DOH’s decision to hand over procurement of medical supplies to PS-DBM will always be questioned as the latter’s mandate is to buy common-use items like pens and paper.
READ: Abolish PS-DBM
The Solicitor General, who was Justice secretary when the Commission on Audit (COA) flagged the DOH’s for its P47.6 billion transfers to PS-DBM, said that the department could have opted to do procurement on its own.
Critical question
“They could have done it on their own. One legal question here is can you classify items used to combat the pandemic as commonly-used items? Can they be classified as commonly used items that the PS-DBM can procure? So, that’s a very critical question,” Guevarra said.
“And, I think—well I do not want to suggest an answer for the Department of Health—that is quite precarious, right? Because some people will say, ‘that’s not commonly-used items like ball pens, paper, et cetera, so, you can’t hand the responsibility of procurement to PS-DBM,” he added.
But Guevarra said that a reasoning behind handing over procurement to PS-DBM may be because there was uncertainty as to how long the COVID-19 pandemic would last.
READ: COA finds DOH lacking in managing P67.32-B COVID funds
Guevarra said that if the COVID-19 pandemic would last for a long time, then it would make sense for equipment such as masks would be considered a common-use supply as the PS-DBM can procure in bulk and possibly increase savings.
“However you can also argue that we are dealing with a pandemic. That was the beginning of the pandemic, you do not know how long the pandemic will last.
You don’t know how many people will need or how many agencies will need ’yong mga PPE (personal protective equipment) na ’yan, mga properties, no?” he said.
“So, to that extent, probably the DOH felt that these PPEs, the test kits can be classified already as commonly-used items in the context of a pandemic. So, probably that will be the legal issue if at all that it will be questioned before a court of law,” he added.
Guevarra said this after portions of the committee on appropriations’ hearing centered on the COA-flagged fund transfers.
READ: Duterte ordered transfer of P47.6 billion COVID funds to PS-DBM – Duque
Directed by the President
During the early part of the hearing—which was conducted to assess DOH’s budgetary performance—former Health secretary Francisco Duque III said it was former President Rodrigo Duterte who directed the transfer of P47.6 billion from DOH to PS-DBM.
Duque was Health secretary when the pandemic hit.
The said P47.6 billion funds includes contracts entered by PS-DBM with Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp., which was accused of selling overpriced face masks, face shields, and other equipment used against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last August 2021, the Commission on Audit found deficiencies on how the DOH managed its P67.32-billion fund to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that it contributed to challenges that the country faced during the crisis.
COA’s annual audit report for DOH in 2020 revealed that the deficiencies are caused by non-compliance with pertinent laws and regulations, which led to missed opportunities for the department primarily tasked with managing the pandemic.
These issues, COA said, cast doubt on the regularity of transactions, while keeping much-needed funds at bay and unspent.
Eventually, it was questioned why the DOH handed over to PS-DBM the responsibility of procuring protective equipment, when the latter’s mandate is to purchase common-use supplies like pens, paper, and other generic equipment.
PS-DBM was also quizzed at the Senate as to why it gave a contract to Pharmally, despite the company having a small paid-up capital of P625,000. Just this May, the Office of the Ombudsman denied the motion for reconsideration filed by former PS-DBM head Lloyd Christopher Lao, who was charged with different raps for his involvement in the Pharmally issue.