THE Baguio Health Department assured no barangay health centers were ever built in the city after Health Secretary Francisco Duque III uncovered possible “billions of pesos worth of irregularities” in the Barangay Health Stations (BHS) project.
“We do not have any Barangay Health Stations in Baguio City. These BHS are usually found in the provinces and here in the city we have health centers strategically located in areas which serve a number of barangays,” City Medical Health Officer Dra. Donnabel Tubera explained.
On June 18, Duque revealed some P8.1 billion was earmarked for the BHS projects with no validated sites before construction which started in 2016.
At present, DOH has paid P1.2 billion to project contractor J-Bros Construction Corporation as payment for mobilization fees.
“In Baguio City, we have 16 health centers serving the 128 Barangays and our health centers have always been here in the city for a long time,” Tubera added.
The DOH has created a task force to look into the BHS project due to “high level of suspicion” from reports on alleged anomalies in the project’s procurement process, incomplete documents, and the findings of the Commission on Audit (COA).
Duque, according to reports, has initiated an investigation on alleged irregularities in the procurement and implementation of the school-based BHS project and tried to give the persons involved the benefit of the doubt.
The BHS project was implemented under then Health Secretary Janette Garin with the of establishing 5,700 rural health units to ensure barangays have access to primary health care with elementary schools identified as sites for the health stations.
The health official added the agency have started its fact-finding committee after receiving a letter from J-Bros Construction in March 2018 informing DOH of a termination of contract and a billing of about P2.9 billion.
The bill, he said, was for about 429 barangay health sites which the construction company claimed it had completed but was found by the task force created in April 2018 that only about 270 barangay health stations were completed with only eight BHS having complete documents.