BACKGROUND: What Leni Robredo's office has done for COVID-19 relief so far

The Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) wants the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to probe Vice President Leni Robredo over her office’s relief efforts to aid health workers and front liners amid the COVID-19 pandemic, saying she was unduly competing with national government efforts.

Lawyer Ibarra Gutierrez, spokesperson for the Vice President, hit out at the PACC, saying that organizing relief efforts is never about a competition but doing the right thing.

Here are the relief efforts of the Office of the Vice President, so far:

• The Office of the Vice President launched a fund drive for purchasing of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) sets for health workers on March 13, three days before President Rodrigo Duterte placed Luzon under enhanced community quarantine which banned mass transport and resulted in work stoppage in industries to prevent mass gathering. For starters, the OVP donated P5.9 million to the said PPE fund drive. As of April 1, the PPE donation drive for health workers has reached more than P42.5 million, resulting in the delivery of 33,375 daily sets of PPE, and 2,320 food and care packages to the front liners.
   
• The OVP started accepting donations of food for health care workers and other front liners from its private donors on March 16. These meals are being continuously distributed to health workers in Metro Manila hospitals amid the ongoing enhanced community quarantine.
   
• The OVP and its private donors offered free shuttle service for health workers and health facility employees on March 18. The free shuttle service initially had six routes. This has already improved to eight routes as of April 1. The enhanced community quarantine is expected  to be lifted on April 13.
   
• On March 20, the OVP donated P5.3 million worth of extraction kits to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine which is needed to conduct around 12,750 COVID-19 testing.
   
• The OVP opened its first dorm for health workers in Cubao Quezon City on March 26. The second dorm for health workers in Teachers Village in Quezon City was opened two days later. Another two dorms for health workers located in Roxas Boulevard, Manila and another in Sampaloc, Manila were opened on April 1.
   
• The OVP also turned over aerosol boxes to hospitals dealing with COVID-19 patients on March 31. These hospitals include: Lung Center of the Philippines, Philippine Heart Center, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), Rizal Medical Center, Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital, The Medical City - Pasig, St. Luke’s Medical Center - Quezon City and St. Luke’s Medical Center - BGC.

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles of the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has said during a news conference that donations to frontliners can be coursed thru the government or private organizations as donors see fit. --JST, GMA News