Garin needs to explain ‘phantom’ health centers

Former Health Secretary Janette Garin has a lot of explaining to do during today’s hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, regarding the alleged anomalous P8.1 billion barangay health center project.

Garin will face off with her accuser and current Health Secretary Francisco Duque III during the hearing called by committee chairman Sen. JV Ejercito.

“The skeleton in the closet of the DOH under Secretary Garin is haunting us,” said Ejercito in a statement.

“In my investigation, Secretary Garin will have a lot of explaining to do regarding the alleged P8.1 billion Barangay Health Stations project,” he added.

Garin is already facing a corruption complaint for allegedly diverting P10.6 billion funds to construct rural health units without prior approval of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) Board of Directors.

The funds were originally intended as PhilHealth premium payments of senior citizens for calendar year 2015.

“Nakakasama talaga ng loob dahil marami ang namamatay na lang dahil walang pampagamot, ‘tapos pinaglaruan at winaldas lang pala ang malaking pondo para sa kalusugan noong nakaraang administrasyon. Kailangang may managot dito kung mapapatunayang totoo (It hurts that many have died for lack of capacity and then one learns that funds were misused by the previous administration. They must be made to account),” he said in the vernacular.The BHS project, implemented when Garin was Health Secretary, was aimed at constructing 5,700 school-based rural health units to ensure the barangays have access to primary health care.

J-Bros Construction in March this year billed the DOH amounting to P2.9 billion for the 429 barangay health sites that it claimed had already been completed.