The Duterte regime was exposed for having procured gross­ly overpriced medical equip­ment in the past months. The most recent was the procurement of 10 million personal protective equipment (PPE) sets from an unidentified Chinese company at P1,800 per set or a total of P20 billion. PPE sets are commonly bought at only P400-P1,000 per set.

Since March, the regime has squandered about P21.8 billion for the procurement of 11 million sets. Duterte and his officials have pocketed at least P10.8 billion (with PPE priced at P1,000 per set) to P17 billion (at P400 per set) in the purchase of PPE sets alone.

The regime’s plan last month to procure polyme­ra­se cha­in reacti­on (PCR) machi­nes for P4.3 million each, and swab test kits for P1,600 each from Omni­bus Bio-Me­dical Systems Inc., a company being investigated for hoarding and overpricing medical equipment, was also exposed and stopped.

The said equipment can be bought directly bought from the manufacturer, San­su­re Bio­tech Inc., at only P1.75 mil­lion per machine, and P600 per test kit.