ROUGHLY half of the P930 million owed by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) was finally paid on Tuesday.
In a statement, Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque confirmed PhilHealth already paid P500 million to PRC late Tuesday.
“The check was received past 5 pm by PRC staff,” Roque said.
PhilHealth made payment after the Department of Justice (DOJ) cleared the state insurer’s Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) and advance cash payment of P100 million with PRC from any irregularities.
Senator and PRC chairman Richard Gordon initially rejected the partial payment of PhilHealth due to concerns it may be delayed in paying its remaining balance.
Roque gave assurances that PRC will be paid in due time as President Duterte committed to settle the debt of PhilHealth, which Gordon said has since risen to P1.1 billion.
“As a result, the total billings sent by the PRC to PhilHealth stand at P1,014,975,500.00 as of October 13, 2020. Of this amount, P930,993,000.00 represents overdue amounts,” the PRC said in a statement earlier.
Under the MOA, PhilHealth had committee to keep replenishing the initial fund it gave PRC, P100 million, every three days. Red Cross gave PhilHealth daily billings precisely to avoid pileups, said Gordon, who noted that because PhilHealth had dragged its feet on payments, the debt grew when PRC tested thousands of returning overseas Filipino workers displaced by the pandemic.
Roque said they hope PRC will resume testing OFW after getting the initial payment from PhilHealth.
PRC suspended the processing of the swab samples of OFWs on Oct. 15, 2020, saying the late payment of PhilHealth had put it in a cashflow bind.
The deferment of PRC’s testing left at least 6,000 OFWs stranded in Metro Manila last week because of the slower processing time of government laboratories to release the test results of the concerned OFWs.
Profiteering probed
The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday launched an investigation on the alleged expensive RT-PCR test being charged OFWs stranded at the country’s airports and other arriving international passengers.
Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said they started the investigation after receiving reports that some OFWs are paying up to P 20,000 for an RT-PCR test just to get early results, since some of them are in the country on very tight schedules..
“Yes, it [the investigation] has started this moring,” Duque said in a Viber message to the BusinessMirror.
Duque also said that they are still waiting for the issuance of an Executive Order (EO) to mandate a price ceiling for Covid-19 swab test for private hospitals, health facilities and other private institutions.
“We are still waiting for the E.O. from the Office of the President,” Duque added.
Earlier, Gordon revealed that one passenger who arrived in the country from the US was asked to pay P10,000 for the RT-PCR test.
In a TV interview on Monday (October 26), Gordon said the PRC will again conduct swab testing but not chargeable to PhilHealth — not only to lessen the growing number of stranded OFWs but also to give those arriving passengers at the country’s airports an option. The cost of PRC’s RT-PCR is only P4,000.