Report status of Bayanihan 2 projects, lawmaker repeats call

ALAWMAKER on Sunday reiterated his call on the national government to report the status of projects to contain the prolonged pandemic under Republic Act (RA) 11494 (Bayanihan 2) as the health sector complains about the supposed lack of personal protective equipment (PPES) despite billions of allocation under the law. Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund F. Villafuerte asked the Department of Health (DOH), the Inter-agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) and the National Task Force Against Covid-19 (NTF) to submit to Congress the status of projects ostensibly funded by the Congress under Bayanihan 2. These include the establishment of temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMFS) and the procurement of PPES, face masks and other medical supplies.

Villafuerte said he wants to find out, in particular, the status of the fund releases and implementation of the P4.5-billion appropriations under Bayanihan 2 for the construction and maintenance of isolation facilities, including the billings of hotels, food and transportation used for the Covid-19 response and recovery program by the Office of Civil Defense (OCD). Villafuerte also questioned the DOH for not spending P3-billion budget on PPES that he said “are essential in their daily battle to save patients and their lives as well from the deadly coronavirus.” The lawmaker said the failure of health officials to use the P3 billion allotted in RA 11494 for the acquisition of PPES “smacks of criminal neglect.” Their continuing inaction has put our medical frontliners at serious risk of infection, great harm and even death on a daily basis in the absence or shortage of such indispensable protection against the highly infectious pathogen.

“What makes this almost criminal negligence doubly infuriating is that P3 billion has been set aside in last year’s Bayanihan 2 for the purchase of PPES for our medical frontliners and yet DOH officials have chosen to take their own sweet time in buying such protective equipment that are so essential in our health-care workers’ daily battle to save infected people and their lives as well,” Villafuerte said.

The law maker added that the government needs to provide our health-care workers with a constant and adequate supply of PPES for their own protection, especially at this time of a surge in Covid-19 infections, which has been traced in part to the advent of new, more transmissible variants of the virus.

Vi ll afue rte, the principal author in the House of both bay a ni han 2 and ra 11469 (Bay a ni han 1), explained that bay a ni han 2 funds is also for the purchase of including medical gowns, N95 masks, respirators, surgical masks, gloves and shoe covers for the use of health-care workers.

Cristy Donguines, president of the Doctor Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center’s Employees Union, and Benjamin Santos, a staff member at the Philippine General Hospital, have been quoted in media reports as complaining about the supposed lack of PPES.

PPES are essential in their daily battle to save patients and their lives as well from the deadly coronavirus.

Rep. Luis Raymund F. Villafuerte