Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Wednesday, August 25, pushed for "free mass testing" for COVID-19 using the billions of funds still not unutilized by agencies.
Lamenting that public funds were "just lying idly and put to waste" despite the health emergency, Sotto made the pitch that these be used to boost the country's testing capacity.
"Given that we are already investigating on COVID-related procurement, why don't we explore the possibility as well of providing free COVID testing to all Filipinos," the Senate chief said at the continuation of the Senate Blue Ribbon's inquiry on the Department of Health's (DOH) disbursement of pandemic response funds following the audit reports.
"Congress has been working hard on the country’s budget to ensure that the needs of our people will be addressed. And it is very disheartening to see that much-needed fund is just lying idly and put to waste especially that we are in the middle of a crisis. Maybe these funds could instead be allocated for the free mass testing and help save lives," he later said.
Sotto shared that some people he personally knew, like most Filipinos, had opted not get checked for possible COVID-19 infection because the tests are still expensive.
"So evidently, the daily tally of cases does not reflect the actual number of people infected with the COVID-19 virus. Corollary to this, the contact tracing, as preventive measure to the further spread of the virus, will come to naught," he pointed out.
"While the government is much devoted to COVID-19 vaccines, our COVID-19 testing has been somewhat being neglected," Sotto said.
The Commission on Audit (COA) recently called out the DOH for its "various deficiencies" in handling COVID-19 response appropriations, including low utilization of funds.
State auditors said that P11.8 billion of pandemic funds were not spent by the department in 2020, although an officer corrected the amount to P10.8 billion.
The DOH also admitted that some P4.7 billion in foreign loans for vaccine procurement and pandemic response funds have not been utilized.
"The effective and efficient spending of the government’s budget cannot be overemphasized. Logically, improving government spending will improve lives," Sotto stressed.