Three years since the coronavirus paralyzed the world and Metro Manila went under lockdown, there is still no accountability for the bungled pandemic response. Aside from COVID and its devastating effects, the pandemic exposed a much larger issue – the healthcare system itself is sick, afflicted by the diseases of incompetence and corruption.
A corruption-ridden pandemic
As COVID cases rose to the millions, cases upon cases of corruption also piled onto the Department of Health.
READ: https://sinag.press/news/2021/08/12/coa-flags-doh-for-poor-management-of-p67-billion-covid-19-funds/
In July 2020, for instance, anti-fraud legal officer Atty. Thorrsson Montes Keith of Philhealth resigned from his position due to the manifestation of widespread corruption in the agency. The alleged corrupted funds reached a total of ₱15B which was later disclosed to have been distributed to hospitals through the Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) as cash advance since only ₱1B was actually liquidated as reported by the Commission on Audit.
Moreover, the Commission on Audit later on revealed that this mishandling of funds resulted in an overpayment ranging from ₱81.507 million to ₱2.208 billion. One can only imagine the number of testing kits, masks, and ventilators that could have been purchased for this amount.
Following these findings of the Senate and the House of Representatives, they recommended charges to be filed against then Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, resigned PhilHealth president and CEO Ricardo Morales, and other PhilHealth executives. Former President Rodrigo Duterte even intervened in the process and defended Duque to be spared from the charges.
READ: https://sinag.press/news/2021/08/17/despite-coa-report-duque-insists-no-covid-funds-were-stolen/
As of writing, no further developments have been heard on this matter.
The government did not stop there as it agreed to shady deals with third parties like Pharmally. Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation, a newly-created company with no credible history and track record, was awarded contracts amounting to over ₱10 billion. Instead of high-quality equipment, these billions, according to investigations in the Senate, were for dangerously low-quality personal protective equipment, thus putting healthcare workers in harm’s way.
Implicated in the scandal is former President Duterte himself. Duterte is a longtime friend of Michael Yang, a Chinese businessman who has been identified as Pharmally’s financier and guarantor. He even appointed Yang as his economic advisor – a clear point of leverage.
Lloyd Christopher Lao, signatory to the contracts, also has friends in high places. Then executive director of Procurement Service – Department of Budget and Management, Lao was a former assistant of Senator Bong Go. Despite Go’s attempt to distance himself from Lao – knowing full well that these connections are suspicious – Lao’s official profile says he worked as undersecretary in the Office of the Special Assistant to the President, Go’s former office before he entered the Senate in 2019.
The findings of the senate blue ribbon committee recommended plunder, graft, and other criminal charges to be filed against the officials involved – including, of course, former President Duterte. But just like the Philheath issue, no further developments have been heard of on this matter – even half a year after Duterte stepped down from the presidency, he still has not been held accountable.
Even the government’s vaccination drive was marred with corruption and incompetence. Tthe Philippines rolled out its vaccination program in March 2021, being the last country in Southeast Asia to do so.
Digging deeper into the vaccine allocation funds reveals that the initial figure – P82.5 billion – was only for show. While Congress did indeed allocate P82.5 billion, only P2.5 billion of this is readily accessible, while the remaining P80 billion was yet to be funded.
To make matters worse, the government favored Chinese pharmaceutical companies despite these not only being less effective, but even more expensive than other vaccines.
Despite eventually acquiring the logistics needed for the rollout, the government still failed in its role to administer the doses. Government officials jumped the line on getting their COVID vaccine – the World Health Organization even warned that they would stop providing free vaccines to the country through COVAX if this was to persist. To add to this crisis, the government failed to keep up with the rate of rollout, – as over 60 million vaccines are expected to go to waste because of expiration.
This blunder of a vaccination rollout program did not only cost human lives in the process but it greatly damaged the economy with the nation lagging behind other countries. More than this, it exposed a system of crony capitalism that has long plagued the government even before the pandemic. All this with no one to be held accountable.
There is a final missing cherry on the top – a health secretary. Despite all of these issues to be resolved, we are yet to see a replacement for the blunderous health secretary Francisco Duque III. Ever since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took his position at the palace, he has only appointed an officer-in-charge to head the department despite the health crisis worsening as the days progress.
One must ask: can Marcos somehow justify leaving the position unoccupied, or should we accept the alternative – that no one wants the job? Admittedly, this second option is believable. No one wants to be the person tasked with fixing the problems left behind by the previous administration, especially with the current President still an ally and Duterte’s presidential daughter still in Malacañang, now Vice President herself.
It has been three years since the NCR Lockdown, and not a single person has been held accountable for the mismanagement of the government in its pandemic response, nor have there been any significant steps to address these failures. The healthcare system is writhing in pain and sick to its core, but those in power have no intention to treat it, precisely because they are the ones benefiting from its agony in the first place.
Featured image courtesy of Philippine Star
