Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 5) — Senator Richard Gordon said the bureaucratic procedure in releasing government funds for the COVID-19 response is adding to the burden amid the rising number of coronavirus infections.
Gordon, also the chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, pointed to the “lack of urgency in some bureaucrats” as the primary reason why the country lags behind some Southeast Asian neighbors in the pandemic response.
“Bureaucracy is the number one problem,” he told CNN Philippines on Monday. “I think the DOF (Department of Finance) should watch it. I think that the Budget and Management (department) and COA (Commission on Audit) should realize there’s a tremendous problem before us, and they should release the money quickly.”
But he said the “biggest culprit of all” is the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, which the PRC has had a rocky relationship with.
PhilHealth pays for the RT-PCR tests conducted by PRC for returning overseas Filipino workers, as well as frontline health and government workers, but Gordon has repeatedly hit the agency for not settling its debts promptly.
“They don’t want to release the money, so hospitals are short,” Gordon said. “Even for vaccination, there was this very, very stupid guy from PhilHealth who said we cannot pay those in tents in the hospital because they are not part of the law. That’s the kind of unmitigated stupidity that we have in our country.”
In an interview with CNN Philippines last Tuesday, PhilHealth spokesperson Rey Baleña said the agency continues to pay its debts to PRC and settle reimbursement claims of private hospitals. However, he said they returned or denied some claims which require correction, or which were found to be deficient.
The state-run agency also received backlash after it said its packages cover services given to COVID-19 patients staying in hospital tents as long as they are part of in-patient care, but not those provided by non-accredited community isolation unit tents. PhilHealth President and CEO Dante Gierran on Friday said the agency will release “enhanced” guidelines to extend “adequate financial protection” to patients.
