DOH to probe allegedly overpriced PPE in previous admin

MANILA, Philippines — Under investigation by the Senate for alleged misuse of COVID-19 funds, the Department of Health (DOH) said it would launch its own probe on the previous administration’s procurement of allegedly overpriced personal protective equipment (PPE).

At Thursday’s budget hearing, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said he would order an investigation on the procurement of PPEs for P3,500 each in 2015 and P3,800 in 2016.

The costs are double the price of the PPEs worth P1,800 purchased by the government last year, which is now being questioned by senators for supposedly being overpriced.

“Yes, we will have this looked into and ferret out the truth... it’s necessary to resolve this issue so we will do that,” Duque told congressmen.

The DOH chief made the commitment during questioning by Iloilo City Rep. Janette Garin, who was the health chief at the time of the procurement of the PPEs in 2015 and 2016.

But Garin quickly denied any hand in the procurement and called for an investigation.

“For the record, Mr. chair, I cannot remember being involved in this procurement,” she stressed.

“Can Secretary Duque quickly initiate an investigation into this allegation and look into the following: did it undergo the proper procurement process? Who were involved in the process? Was this flagged by the Commission on Audit? Was there overpricing? Is the supplier a legitimate company or not? And lastly are these PPEs... can you compare these – apples to apples – with the current PPEs that the PS-DBM is procuring?” Garin asked.

The lawmaker said she was “shocked” by the remarks of presidential spokesman Harry Roque that the PPEs bought by the previous administration were too expensive.

Last Wednesday, Roque said the Aquino administration bought PPEs at over P3,000 each, more costly than the P1,950 per piece purchased by the Duterte administration at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year.

But the following day, Roque denied saying that the PPEs bought by the previous administration were overpriced.

The issue on pricing of PPEs came up during the Senate investigation on the procurement of medical supplies by the Department of Budget and Management, particularly on the awarding of government contracts worth over P8 billion last year to Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp.

Overpriced ambulances

And while the DOH has yet to clear the air regarding its questionable transactions, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said it would have to explain another possible case of overpriced procurement in the middle of the pandemic, this time of ambulances.

“It is not important how I discovered this latest anomaly. I have a way of validating as I always do whenever a ‘whiff of corruption’ catches my attention,” Lacson told reporters, in an apparent dig at President Duterte.

He said documents in his possession showed the DOH purchased Nissan ambulance units for P2.5 million per unit, which includes an automated external defibrillator (AEB) that cost around P300,000 each. Yet, the same vehicle without the AEB would be priced at only P1.27 million, he said.

He said he checked the official records of the said procurement against one made by local government units and found “the difference in their purchase prices are too glaring to ignore.”

He said in the Calabarzon region alone, the DOH distributed 98 of the said ambulances.

He explained he is still collecting more documents to make the figures of the apparent overprice accurate.

Appeal for fairness

Meanwhile, National Task Force against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. has appealed to lawmakers and the public for fairness and objectivity in dealing with the issue on the alleged overpriced purchase of medical supplies.

“There must be no presumption of guilt yet so that we will see and pinpoint what are we lacking,” Galvez said in a message dated Sept. 1.

He said the NTF and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) are willing to listen so they could properly address their shortcomings.

“We are in a pandemic and we are asking for unity. We cannot fight this COVID when we are divided,” Galvez said.

He issued the statement while defending the government’s purchase of supplies for COVID-19 response.

“When the pandemic started, our main objective was to save lives and protect our health care workers who are at the forefront of the battle against COVID 19,” Galvez said in an online interview Wednesday.

“We have no face masks, we have no test kits, there are no PPEs, but those dying are continuously increasing. We need to bring in the supplies as quickly as possible and in larger volumes,” Galvez pointed out.

He recalled that when he was designated NTF chief implementer, they initially intended to procure three million sets, which at the time would only meet the requirements of COVID referral hospitals.

However, Galvez said the number of hospitals across the country requesting for PPEs continued to increase on a daily basis.

“During March and April (2020), hospitals are pleading because they have no PPEs. Their health care workers have nothing to use,” Galvez said.

“With the help of Sen. Pia Cayetano, we were able to get the number of PPEs we need to procure in order for us to have enough supply to be distributed to the whole country, which is more or less 16 million sets,” he added.

He said that based on initial evaluation of the capacities of NTF member-agencies, the DOH was found to lack manpower to purchase such a huge volume of PPEs.

Galvez remembered convening the NTF-Resource Management and Logistics Cluster members including the DOH, Department of Information and Communications Technology, Department of Trade and Industry, Office of the Civil Defense and Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) to ensure that the national government would be able to secure the needed PPEs.

“We looked at domestic production, but it is slow. We also asked the private sector for assistance. We inquired with other agencies, including the diplomatic corps, how we can produce the needed number of PPEs,” he said.

“That’s why we asked PS-DBM to look for supplies, initially even for three million sets, then six million and even 10 million sets – but from a supplier that can produce that many in a span of one week,” he explained.

He said that when the PS-DBM found a supplier from China with the capacity to meet the bulk requirement for PPEs, the NTF did not waste time in finalizing a deal and arranged the shipment through military aircraft.

“That was a collective decision because we see urgency. If we didn’t do it, many more would have died,” he said. – Paolo Romero, Jose Rodel Clapano

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