But DOH budget suffers P10B cut
WHILE Malacañang has increased the fund for cancer treatment by almost half a billion in the proposed P5.768 trillion national budget for 2024, the Department of Health’s own budget has been slashed by as much as P10 billion.
In a break from the past when Congress would chide the Palace for cutting cancer control and treatment allocations, Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto of Batangas said the Marcos administration has proposed that this year’s Cancer Assistance Fund be doubled to P1 billion next year.
On top of this is the P1.02 billion for the Cancer Control Fund, which brings to P2.02 billion the earmarked funds to combat a disease which killed almost 60,000 Filipinos in 2021, or one every nine minutes.
Earlier this month, the Kasuso Foundation, a group that has been educating women on cancer prevention and survival, urged Congress to consider transferring even a small part of the P10 billion Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIF) in the 2024 budget to save the roughly 9,000 Filipinas who die of breast cancer every year.
The foundation said every year, around 27,000 new breast cancer cases are found among local women while 9,000 who were diagnosed in previous years die.
Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte has already filed a bill seeking the establishment of a P10 billion fund to finance the treatment and care of indigent cancer patients and to strengthen the cancer assistance fund mandated under the National Integrated Cancer Control Act (Republic Act 11215).
The bill said that despite the enactment of RA 11215 and the creation of the assistance fund, cancer patients from low-income households continue to bear the financial burden of their medical care and treatment.
Deputy Speaker Camille Villar of Las Piñas also has her own version of the bill, House Bill No. 5686, seeking the institutionalization of a P10 billion fund to support families battling cancer.
While it is good news that the cancer fund has been increased, Recto said the bad news is that the DOH budget will dip from P209.1 billion this year to P199.1 billion next year, as proposed by Malacañang.
He said the DOH’s proposed “agency proper” budget for 2024 will suffer a P10 billion cut because of “the big payroll and overhead in maintaining a large bureaucracy, plus the rising debt service.”
“If the budget were a sculpture, then revenues are the clay from which it is made from.
Hindi ka maaring humulma na malaki kung kulang ang materyales mo (You can’t make a big sculpture if you don’t have enough materials),” he said.
“The MAIF (Medical Assistance for Indigent Fund) will get a P10 billion reduction from this year’s P32.6 billion to the proposed P22.2 billion for 2024, unless both Houses of Congress restore it to this year’s level,” he said.
He added four Quezon City-based hospitals — the Lung, Kidney, Heart and Children’s Centers, which President Marcos wants replicated in the regions, will face a combined cut of almost P818 million.
One major component of the DOH budget – Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases — has been slashed to P1.7 billion, a deep P1.2 billion cut from this year’s P2.9 billion, and even lower than the Palace’s original request of P2 billion for 2023.
Overall, Recto said the health services sector has a proposed cash-based budget of P325 billion for 2024, P2 billion lower than this year’s.
He however said the figure is “inflated” because included in the computation is the P2.7 billion for the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) which is under the Department of National Defense, another P1.3 billion for two agencies of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), and an P8.8 billion parked fund for salaries which is a separate item from personnel benefits.
Recto said that “budget-wise, the DOH is still reeling from the effects of long COVID (coronavirus disease) as shown by the proposed P20 billion allocation for ‘Public Health Emergency Benefits’ for health workers.”
“Pag nabayaran na ang arrears sa mga frontliners, ang laking budget space nito para sa kalusugan sa 2025 (Once the arrears to frontliners are paid, there will be a huge budget space for health in 2025,” he said.
Recto said that like in the past, the Legislative and the Executive, will find ways on how to increase the health budget.
He said there is a proposed P28 billion for the procurement of medicines and another P22.2 billion under Medical Assistance for Indigent Fund (MAIF) which will be used to pay hospital bills.
Congress will also be appropriating P101 billion in premium payments to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) for the implementation of the Universal Health Care Law, which brings the gross DOH budget to P306.1 billion.
Some of these amounts, Recto said, “should be treated as the floor and not the ceiling and should be augmented as they are lower than what has been appropriated for this year.”
