The Commission on Audit (COA) has called the attention of the Department of Health (DOH) regional offices for “irregular, unnecessary, and excessive” expenditures of more than P557 million, including P1.08 million for catering services for virtual meetings.
The catering expenses incurred by the Region 6 Center for Health Development were “not essential” to the conduct of activities, COA said, adding that those who took part in the virtual meetings were just at their workplaces while performing their usual functions.
The audit agency also flagged as an irregular expenditure the P2.11 million worth of hazard pay given to personnel of Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Region 7, who did not physically report to work, and some of whom were not eligible for the hazard pay due to their accumulated leaves of absence.
COA also noted Region 2’s “excessive expenditures” in hazard pay, which exceeded the allowable amount set under Administrative Order No. 26 on the grant of hazard pay to government personnel who physically reported for work during the lockdown.
It said the expenditures failed to comply with established rules, procedural guidelines, practices, and the provisions of Presidential Decree No. 1445 or the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines, and COA Circular No. 2012-001.
“The apparent disregard of existing laws and regulations affected the regularity, validity and propriety of covered transactions. Government funds and property were exposed to the risks of loss or misuse,” the audit report read.
The report also cited the non-utilization of Marawi City’s crisis funds of the DOH amounting to P58.9 million.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III, meanwhile, said Health Secretary Francisco Duque III failed to acknowledge his department’s shortcomings and instead blamed others for the delay in the release of funds for health workers during the Blue Ribbon committee hearing Wednesday.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said Duque should stop pointing fingers and blaming others for the unpaid benefits and special risk allowances of health workers.
He added that Duque’s explanation on Wednesday was “totally unsatisfactory.”
The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines, meanwhile, rejected the DOH claim that they are responsible for the delayed disbursement of special benefits to medical frontliners.
In an interview on ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo, Dr. Jose Rene De Grano, association president, said the bureaucratic system was the culprit for the delayed disbursements.
“Based on our survey, the [benefits] are still on hold in the offices of the Department of Health. Others are coursed through local government units,” De Grano said.
De Grano estimated that about half of private health care workers have yet to receive the benefits as private hospitals and the DOH had yet to come up with a memorandum of agreement on the release of the benefits.
De Grano also dismissed the DOH’s claim that private hospitals had yet to accomplish the requirements for the special risk allowance (SRA) and hazard pay.
“Many of our hospitals have already submitted [the requirements]. They are only waiting [for the release of the benefits,” De Grano said.
All health care workers should receive the benefits and not only those assigned to COVID-19 wards, he added, since they all breathe the same air in hospitals.
Data from DOH showed that between September 2020 and June 2021, the agency released nearly P15 billion worth of allowances and monetary benefits for 1.2 million medical workers.
Under the law, health workers attending to COVID-19 patients are entitled to receive SRA and hazard pay on top of their usual salaries.
Medical frontliners must also receive meal, accommodation and transportation allowances, as well as free swab tests.
Duque on Thursday said due process must be followed before a government official can be suspended, after Senator Grace Poe said he should have been suspended over deficiencies in the handling of COVID-19 funds.
“There is due process; you don’t just suspend someone. I was once chairman of the Civil Service Commission so I know that process,” he said in Filipino.
The Palace on Thursday said President Duterte would take action against government agencies with questionable expenditures only after the COA makes its final report.
Palace spokesman Harry Roque said the preliminary observations of the state auditors “have no meaning yet.”
“The President as a lawyer and former mayor knows that not all observations are sustained after an agency submits its response. But he also knows that after COA releases its final observation, it will be serious because that will be the basis of filing charges,” he said.
However, Roque said that agencies flagged by the COA should answer its preliminary observations in a “quick and detailed” manner.
“The President will not be exempting anyone. There are no sacred cows in this administration,” he said, despite Duterte’s repeated refusal to take action against Duque for other issues raised against him.
Earlier this week, Duterte attacked the COA for flagging agencies and told his Cabinet members to ignore the audit agency.
COA regularly posts its audit reports and observations on its official website, which is accessible to the public, as part of its mandate to promote transparency and fight corruption in government.
In the House, Rep. Florida Robes of San Jose Del Monte City in Bulacan suggested that a pre-audit system of disbursement would avoid questions later on disbursements of public funds.
Robes said that while the process of pre-audit can be more lengthy, it can prevent problems later down the road, as projects and contracts are audited even before funds are released.
This would also protect the credibility of institutions as well as elected and appointed officials, Robes added.
Senator Panfilo M. Lacson on Thursday saluted state auditors for heading off corruption by flagging irregular transactions by various government agencies.
Without the COA reporting, he said, corrupt officials would have had free rein to misuse and abuse already limited resources.
He cited the COA’s flagging of several questionable transactions not only in the DOH but also in other agencies such as the Department of Budget and Management Procurement Service (DBM-PS), Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), and Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).