Charity fund
It may be tinged with political color but Cebu City residents have a right to question how tax money is being used in the City Hospitalization Assistance Medicines Program or Champ.
That’s a fund for charity cases, right?
When Mayor Michael Rama’s secretary Belinda Navasquez was allowed to tap the fund to help pay for her son’s medical bills in a private hospital, eyebrows shot up.
Was he indigent?
Was he qualified under Champ guidelines to avail of medical assistance that has long been reserved for the poorest of the city?
When the mayor said “charity begins at home,” Rama should remember that households of indigent families have few patrons to turn to when a member falls ill.
Their lot brings them to the Cebu City Medical Center, the mayor’s favorite social welfare institution, because that’s all they can afford.
A bill for P145,000 in Chong Hua Hospital, a private hospital, that is settled with Champ funds is out of place unless the medical service required is one that can’t be provided in the government-run CCMC.
Is this the case here for the reported asthma affliction?
Navasquez’s title as secretary should not be mistaken as the description of a minimum wage clerk. She had the rank of a department head and handled City Hall’s human resources office for years before retiring and then coming back to serve the mayor’s office. As a professional, she’s very conscious of policy and propriety.
It doesn’t help that the mayor closes the discussion instantly by saying his decision is valid because it is his prerogative as mayor to decide who are beneficiaries of the Champ.
It just shows that the recipient belongs on his favored list.
A better response would have been a transparent showing of the criteria and procedures of who can avail of Champ funds.
Perhaps, the status of the the son as a City Hall employee was a qualifying element. Why not show the rules that provide for this?
Mayor Rama has come out to defend his employee like a good boss.
But as an elected official, he’s accountable to the people and must demonstrate in word and deed that he uses a charity fund by the book.
Look what kind of trouble Gloria Macapagal Arroyo got into by dipping into the trough of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
That, too, was nobly intended for the poor.
