Duterte awaits DOH response to COA report; Gordon eyes Senate probe on ₱6.7-B fund

There will be "no sacred cow" if a government agency or official is found liable for any misuse of public funds, Malacañang declared Thursday after the Department of Health (DOH) came under fire over alleged mismanagement of pandemic-related funds.

But for now, the President prefers to withhold judgment on the DOH until it has aired its side on a Commission on Audit (COA) report that found alleged fund deficiencies in addressing the coronavirus outbreak, according to his spokesman Harry Roque.

Roque said the health department has been instructed by the President to submit a "comprehensive and clear" response to the COA findings.

"Ang Presidente po walang sinasanto (The President will spare no one). There are no sacred cows in this administration, ‘antayin lang natin ang sagot ng DOH at ‘antayin natin ang final observations ng COA (Let's wait for the response of the DOH and the final observations of COA)," he said during a televised press briefing Thursday, August 12.

"The President is keen to read the answers dahil medyo mabigat ang obserbasyon ng COA (because the COA observation is serious). Ang nais pong mangyari ng ating Presidente, naglaan po tayo ng bilyun-bilyon para sa ating COVID response at ang inaasahan niya lahat po iyan ay magamit para mapakinabangan ng taumbayan. (The President wanted that we allocated billions for our COVID response and he expects the funds to benefit the nation)," he said.

The audit commission earlier flagged the health department for alleged deficiencies on the management of P67.3 billion funds related to its coronavirus response efforts in 2020. The report mentioned the deficiencies were supposedly due to non-compliance with laws and regulations that led to missed opportunities to address the pandemic.

The billions of pesos that were not yet released, the COA pointed out, was "counter-beneficial" to the department's efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the country.

Roque said the President would wait for the final COA report on the DOH's use of funds related to pandemic response before further commenting on the matter. He noted that they recognize the COA is a constitutional body mandated to guard the use of public funds.

Meanwhile, Senator Richard Gordon on Thursday said he is open to a possible Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigation into the COA report.

Despite the ongoing restrictions in place due to the surge of COVID-19 cases, Gordon said he is amiable to holding another probe into the alleged questionable handling of funds by the DOH in order to settle the long list of questions lawmakers have about the government’s COVID-19 response.

“We’re looking into it. You know, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, as much as possible I don’t want to investigate because I don’t want to move our focus away from our current problem,” Gordon said in an interview on CNN Philippines.

Gordon said: “But if we have to investigate, we have to investigate... If the Senate will investigate the COA findings, it should be done quickly.”

“Pero kung nakikita ko na masama na talaga ang nangyari dito, (If we see that things happening have taken for the worse), then we will investigate and heads will roll,” he also stressed.

According to Gordon, his staff are starting to dig into public records to look into the veracity of the information coming from the state auditing agency.

He also said he would make sure that the Senate’s investigation into the COA report would also tackle the nonrelease of special risk allowance to the country’s doctors, nurses and other health care workers who are at the frontline of the COVID-19 response.

Meanwhile, Vice President Leni Robredo lamented the P67 billion in unspent funds that state auditors found in the DOH COVID-19 response budget since the government keeps on saying it has no money to procure vaccines, provide cash aid, and pay health care workers.

Robredo said she’s saddened by the fact that there is money but this is not being spent well.

We know that we have a lot of debt now so the question is why are we borrowing if we have unspent money? When we borrow money, we pay interest every day,” she said in Pilipino. (With a report from Raymund Antonio)