City to pay four pharmacies

CEBU, Philippines - The four pharmacies that tied up with the Cebu City Government for the latter’s medical assistance program can now heave a sigh of relief after various disbursement vouchers were signed for payments to them.

Assistant city treasurer for administration Emma Villarete, by the authority of the city treasurer, signed the vouchers for the payment to the pharmacies that dispensed medicines as part of the City Assistance for Medicines Program or Camp, now called the City Hospitalization Assistance and Medicines Program (Champ).

The Commission on Audit (COA) earlier suspended payment of the pharmacies as they questioned the documentation of the assistance program.

State auditors noticed several deficiencies, including the failure to attach various documents together with the memorandum of agreement (MOA).

Villarete informed Mayor Michael Rama that she signed all disbursement vouchers but registered her objection in signing the documents to release the payment. 

 “Likewise in concurrence with City Accountant, it is respectfully prayed that no notice of disallowance may arise during post-audit transaction of COA on the matter,” Villarete said. 

Rama earlier said he wants to speed up the release of payment to pharmacies that have suspended the dispensing of medicine to the beneficiaries of the city’s medical program.

The four pharmacies – Pro-poor pharmaceuticals, Pro-Inay Pharmacy, Dominique Pharmaceuticals and Dell Pharmacy – are waiting for the payment from the City Hall.

The medical assistance was suspended because of the absence of the billing statement with letters of authority and medical prescriptions presented by beneficiaries to the pharmacy at the time the medicine were received.

City accountant Marietta Gumia said the city government also has to settle bills with the two other pharmacies.

The COA said some beneficiaries of the program could not be classified as poor. Auditors also conducted a random sampling that revealed that seven kinds of drugs had different prices.

Camp was conceptualized by former mayor Tomas Osmeña in October 2009 through Executive Order 09-104. It was then under the Department of Social Welfare Services (DSWS).

When Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama assumed as chief executive, he penned EO 10-01, which separated the program from DSWS and called it Champ. It was expanded to include a coverage of P25,000 in hospitalization assistance in a year. Meanwhile, Rama threatened to file a case against those who kept claiming the P4,000 financial assistance in behalf of the senior citizens who were recently discovered as already dead but whose names were still in the master list of the beneficiaries.

The Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs discovered over 100 names in the list of beneficiaries who are already dead but their relatives continue claiming their annual financial assistance.

After this, the DSWS conducted validation of all senior citizen IDs and verification of the list of beneficiaries to check if they are still alive.

DSWS head Catherine Yso earlier said they have so far validated 60 barangays. They are currently verifying beneficiaries in the mountain barangays.

Their priorities in verification are the senior citizen beneficiaries who, in the DSWS record, gave power of attorney to their relatives to claim the assistance in behalf of them.

These are senior citizens who are allegedly sick or could not come personally to the distribution center due their health conditions.

Rama said he will let the barangays be involved in the verification of all beneficiaries in their areas.

The city government will also be stricter in accepting of new applications which is yet to resume.

OSCA Chief Guillermo Casinillo said that he will suggest to the Mayor to assign one social worker who will focus on the senior citizens financial assistance program to avoid the same problems in the future. (FREEMAN)