By VANNE ELAINE P. TERRAZOLA
Sen. Richard Gordon said Friday he was not offended by President Duterte’s remarks against the Philippine Red Cross for asking the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. to pay its debts.
Duterte called the PRC “mukhang pera” or greedy Thursday night while Health Secretary Francisco Duque III was briefing him about the status of the country’s testing capacity following the humanitarian organization’s suspension of its COVID-19 tests due to the PhilHealth’s ballooning debt.
Instead, Gordon, PRC chairman, blamed Duque for supposedly misleading the President into blurting such a statement.
“I’m not offended…I think he was misled by the statement, because the way the predicate was laid by Secretary Duque was wrong, sabi niya nagtest na uli nung binayaran (that he said the PRC resumed testing when it was paid). So maybe that’s how his take was,” Gordon said in an online interview with reporters.
“Nabigla na naman ‘yan, sigurado (The President just blurted it out, I’m sure),” he added.
Before this, the PhilHealth announced that it released another P100,003,015 to PRC as part of its partial payment for the COVID-19 tests conducted by the PRC for the government. It initially paid the PRC P500 million last Oct. 27, prompting the resumption of testing, particularly for returning overseas Filipino workers.
Duque told Duterte that the halt of PRC’s testing affected the government’s testing efforts and caused a “significant” decrease in the number of tests they conducted in the recent weeks.
“Ngunit nabayaran na po ang PRC at nagbukas na po silang muli kaya patuloy na po ang kanilang pagsusuri ng mga swab specimen (But the PRC has already been paid and they continued their examination of swab specimen),” the Department of Health chief said, to which Duterte commented, “Mukhang pera.”
Gordon said he will not any more respond to the President’s statement and but advised him to be careful with his words that might sound “not really presidential.”
“I don’t worry about it. I will focus more intensely on the problem at hand. COVID is a problem, we have twin problems…Now we have COVID, and we have another bagyo, a super typhoon. I would rather focus on that,” he said.
Gordon said after its latest payment to the PRC, the PhilHealth has to pay P377 million more to fully settle its debt.
