Roque: “Let’s allow na lang the President to say what he wants to say”
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque defends President Rodrigo Duterte over his “mukhang pera” remark at the Philippine Red Cross.
“Let’s allow na lang the President to say what he wants to say. Let that remain on record. Bahala na po ang PRC to construe what the President said,” Roque said.
This was after PRC was criticized by the president for stopping COVID-19 tests due to the government’s P1.1 billion debt.
Duterte quipped that the organization is “mukhang pera” or in other words greedy for money while in a meeting with his Cabinet members.
But Gordon claimed in a statement that the organization is not greedy for money.
In mid-October, the Philippine Red Cross suspended the COVID-19 testing of repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) due to the unpaid debt of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) as much as P1 billion with the organization.
However, Gordon stressed that “we never stopped testing. We started testing in October. And in fact binabaan na namin yung hinihinging presyo ng PhilHealth. That’s why we tried very hard to bring the price down.”
PRC has been conducting COVID-19 tests reaching around 10,000 per day.
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