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A Red Cross worker takes a swab sample from a patient at the Philippine Red Cross laboratory in Mandaluyong City in April. —PHOTO APPLICANT
MANILA, Philippines – With tests for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) by the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) reaching $ 25 million per day, the state insurer’s permanent debt to the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) has now been shot at P623. million.
“It is really the failure to pay bills on time that is killing us here because they owe us now, as of December 1, P623 million,” said the President of the People’s Republic of China, Senator Richard Gordon, in an interview in ABS -CBN News Channel on Wednesday.
“It is a moving target … We are consuming around P25 million a day in testing, it keeps moving and moving,” he added.
As of November 6, PhilHealth has paid off $ 700 million of its debt to the People’s Republic of China. At that time, the permanent balance of the state insurer was P377 million.
Under the original agreement between the People’s Republic of China and PhilHealth, Gordon said the state insurer should only maintain a debt of P100 million.
“We want to compress (the debt) in such a way that in the original contract, they only owe us a hundred million for Hindi naman kami nasa alanganin [So we’re not in trouble]”He said, noting that the humanitarian organization is also assisting in relief efforts in areas devastated by recent typhoons.
Gordon added that both parties agreed that PhilHealth should pay PRC within three days after an invoice for the COVID-19 tests performed is sent to the state insurance company.
“Right now, they have an average of practically nine days, sometimes even 12 days before paying,” Gordon noted.
While PhilHealth Chairman and CEO Dante Gierran assured Gordon that they would fix his balance, the senator said he couldn’t help but feel concerned.
“We talked about it and he (Gierran) said ‘We have a lot of money, we are going to pay. Don’t worry, we’ll pay. ‘ Well, I’m still worried, ”Gordon said.
The senator assumed that the delay in payment of PhilHealth to the People’s Republic of China is due to bureaucracy.
“Bureaucratic delays. It is bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is really, I think they are trying. There are a lot of good people. But of course, in the past, they were liberal with money and a lot of money was lost, ”Gordon said, citing the investigation into alleged anomalies within the state insurer.
“The bureaucracy demands many things,” he added.
He said the People’s Republic of China has been providing PhilHealth with comprehensive data on who the organization is testing.
“No problem, this is our nest,” he said.
(To avoid problems, these are the people we have tested.)
“We have a barcode, a QR code, everything has a QR code. All they have to do is look at it and it’s there, ”Gordon added.
/ MUF
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