Higher COA budget breezes through Senate

The proposed P14.46 billion budget for 2022 of the Commission on Audit (COA)–which is 2.74 percent higher than its 2021 budget–breezed through the Senate yesterday.

In just almost ten minutes, the Senate subcommittee gave its nod to the recommended COA budget. This is the fastest hearing on budget presentation this year.

In his budget presentation, COA chairperson Michael Aguinaldo said the additional budget is for COA’s Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE), and Capital Outlay to bankroll the construction of additional para provincial satellite auditing offices (PSAOs)

As of June 30, 2021, Aguinaldo said 54 PSAOs had been built in the Cordillera Administrative Region and ARMM. He related that 14 PSAOs are still under construction.

“The bulk of these, or about 47, were constructed in the past six years and it could have been more if not for the pandemic and the quarantine it caused,” he said.

No senators questioned the  COA budget, prompting Senate Finance committee chairperson Sen. Sonny Angara to immediately endorse the COA budget for plenary deliberations.

“I’ll just terminate, and this is probably the shortest budget hearing of this 2022 budget. We’ll endorse your budget, without prejudice to any possible increases, to the plenary,” Angara said..

Health workers meanwhile denounced the P1-billion budget cut on Maintenanceand Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) of hospitals attached to the Department of Health as  government owned and controlled (GOOC  hospitals which may deprived indigent patients of needed medical services amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The four GOCC hospitals with MOOE cuts are Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC),

Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP), Philippine Heart Center (PHC), and the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI).

The PCMC suffered the biggest budget cut with P891 million, followed by the LCP   with P100 million  and PHC and NKTI with P28 million and P8 million, respectively.

“We, health workers are resentful and enraged with the Duterte government because in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic and health crisis, it has the gall to reduce the budget for the MOOE of four GOCC hospitals by P1 Billion,” stressed Alliance of Health Workers national chairman Roberto Mendoza.

He slammed   the Duterte government for being inhumane and lacking compassion for the health and lives of the people, especially the vagrants and destitute who cannot afford to pay heavily for their hospitalization.

The MOOE budget reduction would mean no available medicines and medical supplies, insufficient payment for salaries of contractual health workers, and no budget for the Collective Negotiation Agreement incentives to unionized health workers.

Because of this, he warned that patients will be expecting higher fees for laboratory procedures and room rates as part of the income generation scheme of these hospitals.

With the budget cuts, he said many indigent patients will now be sent away and will be deprived of the medical services of these hospitals.