The Board of Investments (BOI) on Friday clarified reports that the hundreds of thousands of personal protective equipment (PPE) that remained undistributed to intended recipients were found not fit for medical use.
The Commission on Audit (COA), in its recent audit report, alleged that 100,000 surgical masks, 49,800 PCV gloves, 900 protective gowns, 1,400 goggles and 999 disposable face masks are still in storage locked in unopened boxes.
“There was no intention to hold or stockpile the donations. We have to understand also that the BOI, with the intention of acting based on prudence and compliance with relevant laws, rules, and regulations, conducted due diligence first to ensure that everything is in order,” said Trade undersecretary and BOI managing head Ceferino Rodolfo.
He explained that before the arrival of the PPE, the Chinese Bureau of Customs (BOC) asked the BOI to confirm if the products are compliant to the quality standards of China or the receiving country, however the BOI could not take appropriate action since the Philippines, at that time, did not have the technology to assess the products.
“We are talking about products here that are meant to protect our health workers so when we received the packages, as a protocol, the BOI had to do proper checking and evaluation of the protective health gear products including its location of origination as well as its quality,” Rodolfo said.
Nevertheless, the goods arrived on April 2021, despite the absence of a signed joint declaration between the donor and the donee.
Rodolfo said the allegation that the distribution “could have saved the lives of some doctors, nurses, frontliners…” were out of context since many of the PPE, notably the face masks, were non-medical.
The BOI distributed some of the donated PPE to the Philippine General Hospital through its Infection Control Unit. The hospital is using the masks in non-frontline environments by its security guards, administrative officers, and among others.
The BOI exercises due diligence to make sure that the PPEs for donation will truly protect the frontliners. Further, the agency thanks its committed collaborators for their continued support of the BOI, as saving the lives of Filipinos is the agency’s utmost priority.
Since the outset of the pandemic, the BOI has been collaborating with the private sector to augment the supply of medical-grade, internationally-certified PPEs to government hospitals including Imports and especially domestic manufactures.
From the perspective of hospitals, the public-private collaboration proved critical in protecting their frontliners.
“The benefits generated from the PPE program of BOI/DTI were felt not only by the frontline healthcare workers but also by manufacturers whose operations shut down because of the pandemic,” said PGH director Gerardo Legaspi,
“Aside from availability problems, the challenge of high costs limited the ability of PGH to sustain its inventory to an ideal and safe level. Funding the PPE manufacturing was partially solved when DTI invited big corporations to invest in its endeavor and make manufacturing sustainable.”
“It allowed these companies to keep their labor forces busy, be creative and adaptive, and also have some cash flow coming in despite the lockdowns. Local manufacturers gave the foreign PPE distributors a good competition,” he added.
The BOI remains committed to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and pushed manufacturers and investors to repurpose their activities and produce PPEs to combat COVID-19.
