SENATE Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III on Tuesday questioned Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial over her “wasteful” foreign trips since she was appointed to the Department of Health last year”•even as the Commission on Appointments again deferred the voting on her appointment.
Sotto said Ubial’s trips had been too many and too often for the length of the time she had occupied her post.
“For example, six foreign trips in two and a half months,” Sotto said.
He further quizzed Ubial on the details of her foreign trips, including the number of Health Department officials who joined her.
He said it had also been reported that Ubial’s immediate family members and some relatives had been traveling with her abroad.
Ubial defended her travels. “When they travel with me, we spend our own funds and I do not sacrifice the meetings for time with my family,” Ubial said.
“I only go with them when it’s outside the official time of the meeting and not a single centavo of the Department of Health is spent on my family’s travel.”
During the CA’s committee on health hearing, Sotto said his office had received reports that Ubial’s trips were “wasteful” because of the number of people who had joined her.
