VP Binay recalls mom’s death in bid to help poor hospitals

CEBU CITY—Vice President Jejomar Binay said on Friday that he and his family would continue helping Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) even without pork barrel funds.

Binay and his daughter, Sen. Nancy Binay, were in Cebu on Friday to turn over 20 hospital beds to VSMMC.

The Vice President added that his son, Makati City Mayor Junjun Binay, had also pledged to donate additional 20 beds.

According to Vice President Binay, he and his children would prepare a checklist of the other needs of the hospital after they made a short visit to the new pediatrics building of VSMMC and other wards. He said he could have done more.
Binay recalled that prior to the abolition of the controversial Priority Development Assistance Fund, he used to donate funds to provincial and regional hospitals.

Earlier last year, the Vice President had asked the Senate committee on finance to remove his P200-million pork barrel from his office’s proposed P417-million budget for 2014.

The Vice President, in his speech, recalled how his mother died because of lack of money to pay hospital bills.

That’s why, he added, education and health became his priority projects in Makati City when he was a mayor.

The Makati city government would donate funds for the rehabilitation of Cebu City Medical Center, Binay said.

Senator Binay, on the other hand, announced  she had decided to adopt VSMMC and promised to continue providing help to the hospital.

“This is just a start of our family’s efforts to help your hospital (VSMMC),” the senator said in her speech.

Senator Binay said she had seen how her brother, Mayor Binay, started a project of providing hospital beds for Philippine General Hospital  three years ago.

Since she has some excess funds from her campaign, she said she decided to do the same and bring aid to hospitals in the Visayas or Mindanao.