Weh, di nga! Lacson disputes Duque’s claim COVID-19 pandemic a ‘blessing in disguise’

Sen. Panfilo Lacson on Saturday disputed Health Secretary Francisco Duque III’s claim that the COVID-19 pandemic was a blessing in disguise of sorts for the country.

Lacson, a vocal critic of Duque, said the pandemic had brought misery to Filipinos partly due to abuses from Duque’s own turf.

“Some people are definitely making a killing out of the misery brought upon our people by the coronavirus, coming as it does in many forms we cannot even imagine,” Lacson said in a statement.

“Yet, as we hear the Secretary of Health saying that the pandemic is a ‘blessing in disguise,’ we know for sure we haven’t seen the worse for our suffering countrymen, in terms of health and economic well-being,” he said.

Lacson cited the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth)’s illegal advance payments to unauthorized health care institutions via its interim reimbursement mechanism; its gross overprice in the procurement of IT equipment; and its doctoring of financial records.

Duque is ex-officio chairman of PhilHealth.

On the other hand, Lacson said that at Department of Health, there are issues “we hate to hear, but which we now know anyway.”

These include the DOH’s “double-the-price” purchases of PPEs and face masks and probably even face shields.

Duque earlier said the pandemic is a “blessing in disguise” as it highlights the need to speed up the implementation of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act.

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Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)