“This is a health emergency. If we want to win against COVID-19 and finally recover as a country, our national budget next year must be a pandemic budget, no ifs, and buts.”
This is according to Senator Risa Hontiveros who pushed for a P48.7-billion hike in the Department of Health’s (DOH) budget to put the health sector in the top three budget allocations for 2021. The move comes as the country continues to bear the brunt of the effects of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
“We are fighting a difficult battle against an unprecedented health crisis. If we want to win against COVID-19 and finally recover as a country, our national budget next year must be a pandemic budget, no ifs, and buts,” Hontiveros remarked as she urged her colleagues at the Senate Committee on Finance hearing on the DOH budget.
The legislator believes the current budget allocation is insufficient to properly sustain the country’s pandemic response alongside regular health operations.
The increase, according to the lawmaker, aims to improve healthcare services nationwide, especially for critical health programs under the DOH.
“Sa nilaki-laki ng P4.5 trillion na proposed budget ng bansa sa 2021, ni wala man lang sa top-3 na mga ahensya na may pinakamalaking pondo ang DOH. Parang hindi tayo nasa top 20 na bansa na may pinakamadaming kaso ng COVID-19 sa buong mundo. Ano ito, isasawalang-bahala na lang natin ang mga nagkakasakit at namamatay na Pilipino?” the lady senator said, adding that this would empower the agency to “finally defeat the greatest health crisis ever faced by Filipinos.”
Her proposed P48.7B hike aims to provide the necessary funding to upgrade various aspects of the county’s healthcare system based on the projected amounts initially proposed by the health department to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
Hontiveros added that P22 billion in her proposal for the DOH budget will go to programs critical to the country’s health response against the pandemic. She also questioned the “shocking” budget cuts, such as the slashed operations budget for national and subnational laboratories that only received P289 million, despite the DOH’s request of P1.3 billion. Local Health Systems Development and Assistance, which promotes health at the community level, she said, only received P353 million of the P1.7 billion requested by the DOH.
“The strengthened barangay and community-based health programs are our ‘missing links’ in battling COVID-19.”
“Our priorities continue to be questionable. The laboratories are crucial to our test-trace-treat pandemic response, but we only allocated 22% of what they need to be fully operational,” Hontiveros said. “The strengthened barangay and community-based health programs are our ‘missing links’ in battling COVID-19, but we’ve weakened our budget disproportionately for this as well.”
Meanwhile, the programs for prevention and control of communicable diseases were only awarded P5.98 billion from the requested P15 billion, which she says is crucial to “prevent further uncontrollable outbreaks from worsening the country’s health situation”.
Hontiveros stressed that the DOH’s budget for human resources for health deployment should be brought up to address the issue of lack of health workers responding to the fast rise in COVID-19 cases.
“This will not only allow the hiring of more health workers, but also ensure that they will receive more meaningful salaries,” she explained.
Apart from health programs to beat the COVID-19 pandemic, Hontiveros added that funding for the prevention and control of other “killer” non-communicable diseases was also deprioritized, having been awarded a “measly” P373 million from the requested P1.33 billion.
“Hindi porket may COVID ay wala nang Pilipino na pinahihirapan ng mga sakit gaya ng tuberculosis at iba pang infectious diseases, kanser, at mga non-communicable diseases tulad ng hypertension at diabetes. There are other emerging health emergencies now, such as the rise in cases of measles, malnutrition, mental health issues, and even teenage pregnancies, which we also have to deal with seriously,” she said.
Hontiveros said P26 billion of her proposal is meant to increase the funding of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation to cover the health costs of the 7.6 million newly-unemployed.
“Our health budget has to adjust to the needs of the millions who literally cannot afford to get sick. We have to be equipped to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable,” she emphasized.
“Our health budget has to adjust to the needs of the millions who literally cannot afford to get sick.”
“Walang magiging ‘new and better normal’ sa 2021 kung anemic ang budget natin para sa kalusugan sa gitna ng isang pandemiya. If we want to ensure steady economic recovery and continue development, we have to learn to invest more in the health of the Filipino people,” Hontiveros concluded.