Donations are accounted for

CEBU, Philippines —  Cebu City Vice Mayor Michael Rama and former councilor Joy Pesquera have assured that donations for the NOAH Complex are well accounted for.

Located at the South Road Properties, the complex serves as isolation facility for asymptomatic COVID-19 patients in Cebu City. Over a hundred patients are at the complex at the moment.

 Rama and Pesquera made the statement following posts on social media questioning the transparency in the handling of donations. 

 Originally the studios of Big Foot, the NOAH Complex was transformed into an isolation facility primarily with the help of the private sector. 

“I just want to put on record lang sad nga here in NOAH, wala gyud koy gi-accept nga funds from the donors,” Pesquera said.

(I just want to put on record also that here in NOAH, I never accepted funds from donors.)

The manager of the complex said she even had to use her own money for advance payments for materials needed during the construction of the complex. She then gave the receipts for what she paid for to those who pledged for support. Usually, she said, donors would purchase the materials themselves.

She said the medical team at the Complex also record the medicines and equipment that are donated.

 Pesquera said they are eyeing at filing charges against those who post malicious allegations against her and Rama. She and Rama are both lawyers.

Rama said, however, that a lawsuit can wait and the focus now should be on liberating Cebu City from COVID-19. 

“Bottomline, there are more pressing matters than to focus on this so-called people who are there whose intentions are malicious. We will just, in the meantime, shelve it. There will be an appropriate time for that,” he said.

Pesquera agrees:

“Naa pa tay mas importante nga atimanon. Anyway, ang libel, dugay pa man na iyang prescription. Nakaila man pud ko sa person. It’s not difficult to locate him because I know him personally,” Pesquera said about the person allegedly spreading malicious information. 

(We have more important things to do. Libel can wait. Anyway, it has a long prescription period. I know the person. It’s not difficult to locate him because I know him personally.)

 Meanwhile, Rama said the group that Secretary Roy Cimatu put together from the medical and business sectors, the Central Command, PNP, and the Association of Barangay Captains, among others, is making some progress.

 President Rodrigo Duterte assigned Cimatu to oversee the COVID-19 response in Cebu City.

 “I‘m seeing McArthur in the modern times in the person of Gen. Roy Cimatu and his team. I call them the liberators. That is why Cimatu is the McArthur of modern times. He left Manila to come here, then left for Manila, and he is coming back again,” Rama said.

“Being together is progress and that’s why there are continuing meetings, bottom-up; Working together so that the orchestration will lead to fruition,” he added.

Rama said he believes that Cebu City will beat COVID-19 with Cebuanos praying to the Santo Niño and San Pedro Calungsod.

Pesquera said they are open to suggestions from the community to improve the operation of NOAH Complex further.

 Today, NOAH Complex will start expansion with 400 tents donated by Aboitiz Power. Each tent can accommodate four patients, based on Department of Health (DOH guidelines.

Like Cimatu, Rama believes that the barangay isolation centers located in the middle of the community have helped spread the virus. JMO (FREEMAN)