MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Audit (COA) has noted multiple violations of rules regarding pork barrel disbursements by the state-funded University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) from 2011 to 2012.
In a report released on Wednesday night, the COA said the finance books of UP-PGH showed that the hospital received P122.4 million from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations of 18 senators and 138 members of the House of Representatives during the same period.
Legislators usually put a portion of their PDAF allocations to hospitals to help defray the cost of treatment and medication of poor patients seeking treatment at UP-PGH.
But the COA said that based on agreements signed between the lawmakers and PGH, guarantee letters to be secured from the legislators were subject to authentication and validation as to the availability of funds by the hospital’s accounting office.
A guarantee letter contains the name of the beneficiary (patient) and the authorized cost of treatment or medication.
Drugs and supplies
The COA report said that at one point, the hospital’s oncology pharmacy dispensed more drugs and medical supplies than the amounts authorized by the guarantee letters, totaling P2.89 million from January to December 2011.
For amounts bigger than P50,000, the agreement required approval by the PGH director but this official’s signature was not found on documents submitted to the COA in support of the disbursements.
“The exorbitant charges [that] were noted in the issuances of drugs and medicines mostly by the oncology pharmacy were calculated to be ranging from 0.01 percent to 10,296 percent per patient,” the COA said.
The COA said that because of the adverse findings, it issued Notice of Disallowance No. 2013-001 covering the amount.
Another issue was the questionable issuance of P1.31 million in medical supplies to patients without guarantee letters or support documents.
Beneficiaries unnamed
The COA said the sum was deducted from PDAF allocations, although it was not clear who benefited from the issuance.
“The names of the patients who received medical assistance for laboratory procedures and diagnostic examinations did not appear on the list of [guarantee letters] issued,” the COA said.
It also flagged 827 guarantee letters corresponding to P1.04 million in PDAF disbursements that were allowed despite lack of authority from the UP-PGH deputy director for fiscal services, while another 55 guarantee letters covering P189,000 were found excessive and lacked approval.