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Wednesday, August 08, 2007
P3M of Cebu lawmaker’s pork barrel ‘went to ghost purchases’
By Karlon N. Rama
CEBU CITY -- Two government audit reports hint that some P8 million in government funds, P3 million sourced from Representative Antonio Cuenco’s pork barrel, may have gone to the “ghost purchase” of medicines.
A Commission on Audit (COA) source said the anomaly is now the subject of a fact-finding investigation.
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An exit conference has been scheduled so the Cebu City South District lawmaker can present his side before the report reaches the Office of the Ombudsman.
The first report stemmed from the 2004 audit by the COA auditor assigned to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC), the agency through whom the pork barrel allocation was coursed. That report was anonymously emailed to Sun.Star Cebu.
The second report is the “consolidated” version that the COA-Central Visayas legal division endorsed to the central office for a fact-finding investigation. It was obtained from an agency insider for confirmation.
“I have already communicated with COA regarding that,” the congressman said in an interview Tuesday night. He quickly pointed out that he is now “working with them (COA) to prosecute the people responsible.”
NBI’s help
He blamed staff members in cahoots with VSMMC employees and the supplier for the mess and said the responsible people on his payroll “have already been kicked out.”
“I have also gone to the NBI and asked them to go to after the culprit. I’m going after the crooks and I don’t care who gets hurt,” he said.
Of the P8 million, P3,290,083.29 came from Cuenco’s congressional pork barrel. This was supposed to buy anti-rabies vaccines for indigent VSMMC patients from Cuenco’s district.
According to the audit report, the pharmaceutical supplier claimed payment using forged documents, like prescriptions and referral slips given to non-existent patients.
The remaining P5,156,760 were assorted medicines purchased through the hospital without bidding and from a single source, the Pharmaceutica Filipina de Visayas.
Immediately after delivery, one of Cuenco’s staff members, allegedly together with the staffer of another congressman, supposedly pulled the items out of the hospital pharmacy. The medicines were then supposedly distributed to 20 barangay health workers.
But upon verification, eight denied receipt. The remaining 12 have yet to answer.
No purchase?
“In construction, a ghost project is a bridge or road that only appears on paper. In procurement, it’s a purchase that never was,” said the COA source.
In the first incident, the money was used to buy anti-rabies vaccines. The vaccines were to be drawn from the Dell Pharmacy, owned by one Wendell Villacin. Indigent patients could get their medicines by presenting the prescription sheets and referral slips issued to them and signed by their attending VSMMC doctors.
The pharmacy, in turn, was supposed to claim payment from the hospital by submitting the cash invoice and delivery receipt, together with the prescription sheet and the referral slip covering the transactions.
But according to COA, the payment claims made by Dell were spurious.
The doctors identified as the issuing physicians in each case said that the signatures in the prescription pads weren’t theirs. They couldn’t remember treating the patients named in the invoice.
106 names
“One hundred six fictitious patients were given prescriptions of anti-rabies vaccines totaling P2,986,037.20 by forging the physician’s signatures as confirmed by the concerned doctors,” the report read.
COA hinted that the recycling of the few valid withdrawals that existed was also resorted to, as indicated in the claims of Vicente Perez and Maximo Buaya.
If Dell Pharmacy’s payment claim is to be believed, Perez got bitten by a dog twice in the same month. His prescriptions for vaccines were dated November 17 and 30, 2003.
Another patient, identified as Maximo Buaya, was just as unfortunate. He got bitten by a dog once in January 2004 and again in the following month. He withdrew his vaccines last January 22 and February 26, 2004.
Other inconsistencies were noted. Some of the vaccines were claimed 3-10 days after the prescription date while other patients claimed the vaccines four days ahead of the prescription date.
“This is unusual,” the COA report pointed out, “considering that dog bites should be treated as early as possible. And besides that, the vaccines are free. So why wait for a number of days to lapse?”
Timing
But the most telling is the choice of hospital to course the free-vaccines project through. According to the source, VSMMC is a regional hospital. Normally, it will not accept Cebu City cases except under emergency. Cebu City outpatient cases, like dog-bites, get referred to the Cebu City Medical Center.
On the second incident, COA narrated how VSMMC purchased P5,156,760 worth of assorted medicines from a single supplier – Pharmaceutica Filipina de Visayas.
Cuenco’s staff member, James Yrastorza, together with one Rolando Ybańez representing a certain Rep Calderon, supposedly claimed a bulk of the delivery, worth a total of P5,048, 231.50.
The supply was released despite the fact that the only attachment to the claim is a Requisition and Issue Voucher and supposedly given to 20 barangay health workers, eight of whom have denied receipt and 12 of whom have yet to speak out.
“In addition, we noted that purchase orders were approved ahead of the purchase request and deliveries were made before purchase orders were received by the supplier…and the mode of procurement was direct purchase instead of public bidding,” the report read. (Sun.Star Cebu)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Bacolod. (August 8, 2007 issue)
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