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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 27) – The Philippine Red Cross (PRC) announced Tuesday night that it will resume testing for COVID-19 under the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), hours after the state health insurer liquidated partially your debt.
“Tonight, I have asked the secretary general and all of our labs across the country to re-open it to PhilHealth,” said the President of the People’s Republic of China, Senator Richard Gordon, at an online news conference.
Gordon said the PhilHealth-funded testing of the People’s Republic of China will first resume at Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Tuesday night, while testing in all labs will be conducted in full starting tomorrow.
“We’re ready to test all the people that we haven’t tested,” Gordon said. “‘Yung mga nasa hotel ngayon, ipadala na nila, iti-testing kagaad namin’ yan (you can send us those staying in hotels now, we will test them right away).”
More than 6,000 overseas Filipino workers have been stranded in quarantine facilities since the People’s Republic of China stopped testing PhilHealth clients two weeks ago. The samples were sent to government laboratories, while private ones offered to help.
Gordon’s announcement came after PhilHealth paid off nearly half of its more than $ 1 billion debt to the People’s Republic of China under a COVID-19 trial deal.
The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHeal th) released PHP 500 million as a partial payment to the Philippine Red Cross, ”the agency announced in a statement on Friday.
“It will expedite the processing of the remaining balance by following strict adherence to government accounting rules and regulations,” added PhilHealth.
PhilHealth owed the People’s Republic of China more than $ 1 billion, nearly $ 931 million of which was marked as an overdue balance, which the humanitarian organization demanded be cleared before testing could resume.
PhilHealth failed to meet its previous commitment to pay on Monday, prompting Gordon to call it “reckless.” On Tuesday morning, Gordon warned of possible legal action if the debt remains unpaid.
Without explaining the delay, PhilHealth said it was not “gambling with people’s lives” but was exercising “prudence” to protect the public and their contributions.
‘Pay the remaining balance immediately’
When asked if he will give PhilHealth a deadline to pay off the remaining debt, Gordon said he is not interested in doing so, but will ask the agency to “pay immediately.”
He added that, in the future, the state insurer would have to pay within three days of conducting a COVID-19 test to control the mounting debt.
“Because I pagka three days Hindi sila nagbayad (if they don’t pay within three days), I will tell them that I will stop testing,” Gordon said.
“There are Red Cross societies in the world that have closed because their investment was not paid, and I don’t want to be like that,” he added.
[Translation: There are Red Cross societies in the world which were forced to shut down after their investments have not been paid, and I don’t want to be like that.]It previously asked the Justice Department to review its memorandum of understanding with the People’s Republic of China for possible procurement issues. PhilHealth was recommended to pay off its debt.
When Malacañang announced last week that the government would initially pay off half of the money it owed, Gordon demanded full payment. He stressed that the People’s Republic of China is a non-profit organization and without the money, it would not have enough test equipment and personnel to resume testing.
More than 6,000 overseas Filipino workers have been stranded in quarantine facilities since the People’s Republic of China stopped testing PhilHealth clients two weeks ago. The samples were sent to government laboratories, while private ones offered to help.
“PhilHealth also recognizes and assures accredited laboratories performing current OFW RT-PCR tests that they will expedite the processing of your payments by submitting full documentary requirements,” the agency said.
The OCTA research team previously noted that PhilHealth’s failure to pay off its debt to the People’s Republic of China on time has resulted in a drop of around 30 percent in national testing capacity.
In its monitoring report, it said that without the PRC testing facilities, local government units’ COVID-19 programs, such as isolation and contact tracing efforts, are “paralyzed” due to the delay in case detection within the required 24-48 hour time frame. .
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