Emano’s hospital purchases moves ‘suspicious’ – opposition

January 31, 2010

By Lizanilla J. Amarga

Cagayan de Oro local opposition lawyers recently voiced apprehensions over Vice-Mayor Vicente “Dongkoy” Emano’s announcement that City Hall would be purchasing more medical and hospital equipment for the J.R. Borja Memorial City Hospital this year.

They pointed out how Emano, who is gunning for the mayoral post anew, has been the mayor for nine years or since 1998 to 2007 and had vowed time and again to upgrade the city hospital by purchasing hospital equipments – even supposed world-class ones – on numerous occasions but with ‘highly questionable’ results.

Some 18 counts of graft and corruption charges were slapped against Emano and then city hospital administrator Dr. Jerie Calingasan at the Office of the Ombudsman-Mindanao by city hospital doctors, nurses and staff in 2007.

Also, the auditors from the Commission on Audit (COA) had questioned irregularities on several purchases made by the then Emano administration as reflected in their annual audit reports.

In 2008, COA reported that around P15 million in medical supplies and equipment cannot be fully accounted.

In separate interviews with Periodico News Network, local opposition lawyers Atty. Manuel Ravanera and Atty. Roy Raagas were one in saying that Emano, the PaDayon Pilipino titular head and standard bearer, together with his political party members never had any intention of actually improving the city hospital.

Ravanera said more than 40 years have passed and the original building of the hospital has started to crumble.

He said the services that have been rendered to the Cagayan de Oro’s ailing populace have become insignificant that the poor has started to rely, when it comes to health services, not on its own local government through the city hospital, but on foreigners, specifically the German Doctors.

“The city hospital has virtually become a white elephant, useless yet expensive. It has become a milking cow that enriches the pockets of those in power instead of a venue to heal health maladies of Cagayanons,” he said.

He added that city hospital patients’ were likened to that of dreams that have reached Mona Lisa’s doorsteps: “They just lie there, and they die there!”

Ravanera is the lawyer who is representing the city hospital doctors, nurses and staff members who executed sworn statements that enumerated the anomalies in the purchase of medicines, hospital supplies, medical equipment and apparatus during the Emano administration.

Just last week, Emano said, “Makabaton sa dugang modernong kahimanan ang J.R. Borja Hospital.”

The vice-mayor cited how the PaDayon Pilipino-dominated City Council has enacted an ordinance allocating millions of pesos for the procurement of additional medical equipment for the city government-run hospital.

This including P770,000 for the purchase of one unit Defibrillator and one unit of 1/2/3 Channel ECG Digital Analyzer.

Emano voiced optimism this would enable the city hospital to better serve the hospital needs of its patients.

“Gihingusgan sa dakbayan ang pagpalit sa mga modernong kahimanan sa atong City Hospital aron maka-alagad gayod kini sa hingpit sa atong mga kabos nga pasyente,” he said.

But Raagas voiced strong convictions that the amount set for these city hospital purchases would line somebody else’s pockets and would again make fools out of poor gullible voters .

“Ang luoy gyud kaayo ani ang kabus nga maoy ilang sige ga-ilaron sa ilang mga saad (It would be the poor who are at the losing end and who they fool with their empty promises),” the former city councilor said.

Among the 18 counts of graft charges filed by the city hospital doctors, nurses and staff include the purchase of a surgical table which they report barely cost around P400,000 but was purchased at P1,240,000 or triple the price and that an X-Ray machine was purchased at P6.5 million when they said it cannot even command a price of P3 million.

Also, that Emano and Calingasan bought eight kilos of detergent powder at a price of P11,500 or an amount of P1,437.50 per kilo and that an Anesthesia Machine was bought in the amount of P1,985,000 which the city hospital doctors reported to be malfunctioning and even endangering the lives of the patients.

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