Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 22) – The Philippine Red Cross asserted that all its transactions with the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), particularly on COVID-19 response, are all legal contrary to the allegations of Senator Leila De Lima.
“All transactions between the PRC and PhilHealth are legal and needed by the country,” said Red Cross’ Board of Governors in a statement on Monday.
“She should have studied first the law. She would have then discovered that the transactions in the Memorandum of Agreement dated 5 May 2020 between PRC and PhilHealth is exempted from Republic Act No. 9184, or the Government Procurement Reform Ac,” the organization added.
De Lima said last week that there should be a “full-blown investigation” after Gordon entered into a deal with the state health insurer.
“Under the law, TEST KITS…are included. The law further qualified that the Department of Health shall prioritize the allocation and distribution of such goods, supplies, etc. to ‘public and private laboratories that have existing capacities to test suspected COVID-19 patients,’” said Red Cross citing the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act.
It added that Bayanihan 1 does not include “advance/mobilization fees” or revolving funds.
“The advance payment happened only once and after that, it was already the PRC which has been advancing the test in spite of PhilHealth’s unsettled obligations to PRC, which is now more than P500 million,” said Red Cross.
The organization also defended that there is no conflict of interest on the part of Gordon when he entered the deal despite spearheading the Senate probe on alleged anomalies in PhilHealth.
“He has grown the PRC to unimaginable heights but he is not paid and has never received any benefits or dividends from this because the latter is a non-stock, non-profit organization. How could there be a conflict,” said Red Cross.
Last August, whistleblower Atty. Thorson Montes Keith said that Gordon could be indicted in the anomalies in PhilHealth due to the deal between the two organizations.
