THROUGHOUT the Covid-19 pandemic, the only times the Philippine Red Cross has figured prominently in news headlines has been on the couple of occasions the country’s premier relief agency has been involved in disputes with the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) over unpaid claims for coronavirus testing. This is not quite fair, as it has taken attention away from the substantial work the Red Cross has done to help the country in its fight against the coronavirus.

Coronavirus testing is, of course, one major way the Red Cross has helped; the agency operates more than 20 testing laboratories and through the end of April, had conducted more than 2.5 million tests — about 20 percent of the total number of coronavirus tests administered in the Philippines since the pandemic began.