‘Anomalous’ barangay health project probe up

“They must show up as they have a lot of explaining to do.”

Thus warned Senator JV Ejercito yesterday in Filipino as the Senate Committee on Health and Demography summoned to a hearing on July 4 all the parties involved in the allegedly anomalous Barangay Health Stations (BHS) program initiated during the Aquino administration.

Ejercito’s committee invited to the probe health officials, past and present, as well as people behind the firm that bagged the BHS contract, JBros Construction.

“We are just waiting for the confirmation of attendance of the resources persons,” said Ejercito, who added Health Secretary Francisco Duque has already confirmed.

The senator said also invited was former health secretary Janette Garin.

On Thursday, the Department of Health (DoH) said it was still undecided whether to continue the BHS program across the country.

Duque said the decision will depend on the outcome of the investigation of the Commission on Audit (CoA) and the Ombudsman over the alleged irregularities surrounding the project.

Duque admitted there were some lapses when it came to the locations of the BHS units, especially in elementary schools across the country.

JBros officials earlier denied any wrongdoing, saying the DoH was using the issue as an excuse not to pay the firm.

JBros maintained the DoH terminated the contract last March 18 after failing to provide all the sites for construction and “unjustifiably” refusing to heed their request for payment.

According to the firm’s Director for Operations Atty. Julieanne Jorge, they have already constructed 250 units of BHS, which means, they should receive payments from the government.

Duque said based on their validation, only eight units have complete documents. He also maintained that DOH cannot release payment with only such number of validated units.