A FORMER Health department consultant and the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption are preparing complaints against 19 people suspected to be part of an alleged Health department “mafia” involved in anomalies in the department.
Francis Cruz told a TV interview that he and the VACC had asked Health Secretary Francisco Duque III for the service records of the 19 in connection with the anomalies in the P3.55-billion fund for the Dengvaxia purchase.
“It’s there that you will find who they are during the time of [Health secretary Janette] Garin, and Ieven requested them to submit SALNs because we have reports that some of them have assets not recorded in the SALN,” Cruz said.
He made the statement even as Senator Risa Hontiveros challenged Sanofi Pasteur to provide compensation to the children affected by the Dengvaxia vaccine, aside from its plan to reimburse the Philippine government the P1.4-billion unused stock of Dengvaxia vaccine.
Senator Richard Gordon expressed the same view, saying that instead of merely reimbursing the government, Sanofi should make provisions for the people, both children and adults, who were injected with the vaccine who needed its full support.
Cruz said the 19 people were suspected of having been involved in the allegedly suspicious activities around the P3.55-billion fund but not in other projects.
He said the VACC was already preparing a case using the documents he had obtained after learning of the illegal activities around March 2017.
“The administrative charge will come within the next two months,” Cruz said.
Cruz, the good governance consultant to former Health Chief Paulyn Jean Rosell Ubial, accused Garin and a dozen other people of “plunder”-like activities such as the conversion of part of the P3.55-billion fund for the Dengvaxia purchase.
Garin allegedly sub-allotted P3 billion of the funds from the Department of Budget and Management to the Philippine Children’s Medical Center and retained with the Health Department the remaining P550 million.
“Up to now they couldn’t explain, and I saw some of the expenditures for the operations throughout the three regions they got it from for the dengue control program,” Cruz said.
“About P30 million per region, so I’m asking: Where’s the P550 million?”
Cruz said a notice of cash allocation from the Budget department and the National Treasury supposedly indicated that the P550 million was reallocated to alleged “ghost” projects such as non-existent village health stations under the Health Facility Enhancement Program.
In her defense, Garin on Monday explained that the P550-million savings from the dengue vaccine procurement by the PCMC were still with the hospital.
On the alleged ghost projects, Garin said: “I can assure you that during my time, there were no ghost deliveries of equipment or medicine,” Garin said.
She then challenged Cruz to file a case against her based on solid evidence and documentation.
Duque echoed her sentiments and said Cruz must present evidence against the incumbent Health department officials allegedly involved in the “mafia.”