{"id":272335,"date":"2020-10-20T00:46:52","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T04:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=272335"},"modified":"2020-10-20T00:46:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-20T04:46:52","slug":"prrd-assures-govt-will-look-for-money-to-settle-red-cross-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/10\/20\/prrd-assures-govt-will-look-for-money-to-settle-red-cross-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"PRRD assures gov’t will ‘look for money’ to settle Red Cross debt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte talks to the people after holding a meeting with the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) core members at the Malaca\u00f1ang Golf (Malago) Clubhouse in Malaca\u00f1ang Park, Manila on October 19, 2020. (PCOO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night assured that the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) will pay its debts to the Philippine Red Cross (PRC).<\/p>\n

In his weekly Talk to the Nation, Duterte said the government is currently working on a solution to pay the PhilHealth\u2019s accumulated debt of PHP930.99 million.<\/p>\n

Duterte\u2019s statement comes after the PRC last week stopped conducting tests that are being charged to the PhilHealth.<\/p>\n

\u201cItong<\/em>\u00a0Red Cross,\u00a0huwag ka mag-alala mabayaran \u2018to<\/em>\u00a0(This Red Cross, don\u2019t worry we\u2019ll pay the debt). They\u2019re just looking for a way to present the solution\u00a0sa<\/em>\u00a0(in) [the Commission on Audit] pati sa Budget. Do not worry, we will pay. It will take time, but we will pay,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

The President said he will look for sources to settle the state insurer\u2019s outstanding balance so that the PRC can resume the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) tests.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll look for the money.\u00a0Hindi naman marami<\/em>\u00a0but ang priority natin dito is really medical treatment, medical attention.\u00a0Babayaran to<\/em>\u00a0(Not so much but our priority is really medical treatment, medical attention. We\u2019ll pay for it) in a short while, do not worry,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The PRC has been receiving samples of returning overseas Filipino workers, those arriving in airports and seaports, those in mega swabbing facilities, and front-line health and government workers.<\/p>\n

Duterte said \u201cmoney has always been a problem\u201d especially at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cDumaan tayo ng malaking gastos<\/em>\u00a0(We went through massive spending) and we\u2019re trying to make both ends meet.\u00a0Binabanat natin ng husto \u2018yung<\/em>\u00a0resources\u00a0natin<\/em>, (We are really stretching our resources),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last Thursday, National Policy Against Covid-19 chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. said National Policy chairman and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Dante Gierran have been in talks with PRC chairman and Senator Richard Gordon to address the issue.<\/p>\n

Gierran said the state insurer will pay its outstanding balance, but also pointed out that his team found questionable items in the agency’s existing deal with the non-government organization.<\/p>\n

He claimed that the contract between PhilHealth and PNRC, which was approved by former PhilHealth chief Ricardo Morales, did not comply with procurement directives of the Office of the Executive Secretary.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque earlier said PRC accounts for one-fourth of the country’s testing capacity, which means its decision to halt testing could hamper testing efforts.<\/p>\n

He, however, assured that there are public and private laboratories that also have the capacity to handle the Covid-19 tests.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night assured that the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) will pay its debts to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":272336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272337,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272335\/revisions\/272337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}