Letter to PDI Editor Re: Department of Health (DOH) Budget
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The Reader’s Advocate
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Dear Sir/Madam
Yesterday’s statement of Cong. Lagman, the chairman of the Congress Committee on Appropriation lamenting that 67% of 2008 national budget is allocated for debt service. Many of which, such as the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant and the incinerator plants did not benefit the country at all, should have been laudable. However, while he rails against this “inordinately expensive folly” he allowed such folly to happen to the Department of Health (DOH) prepared budget.
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The proposed 2008 Budget of the DOH comes to us a skewed financial plan that reflects an unconscionable bias against the poor and the protection of human life.
Consider the following:
1. Out of the total budget of P15.393 billion, only P2.423 billion or 15.7% is allocated for disease prevention and control to cover public health threats like rabies, malaria, schistosomiasis, leprosy, filariasis, HIV/AIDS, dengue, food and water-borne disease and the like.
2. In addition, a measly sum of 0.38% or P6 million is allocated for subsidy to indigent patients for confinement in specialty hospitals and for the use of specialized equipment not available in government hospitals.
Considering that the poor, who are the main recipients of the services of the DOH, comprise 24% of our country’s population, this is paltry, indeed! The skewed allocation becomes more glaring in the light of the fact that in the 2008 DOH budget, 40.7% goes to personal services.
It should also be noted that in the DOH budget, P1.99 billion or 50% of the allocation for disease prevention and control is allocated for family planning, which, as is widely known, involves the promotion of pregnancy control through artificial contraceptives. Likewise, 5% of the budget allocation for Maintenance and other Operating Expenses is allocated for disease prevention and health promotion, which again, includes programs for itinerant family planning teams. In addition, P392.5 million is allocated for the Population Commission which has been pushing for birth control.
What boggles the mind in this kind of budget alignment is the idea that pregnancy is a disease that needs to be prevented and controlled! Instead of focusing scarce government resources to fight “real” disease in order to save lives, DOH has allocated them to destroy the lives of women and their unborn children by promoting pregnancy control through the use of artificial contraceptives, many of which are, in effect abortifacients. It seems that we now have a health department run by doctors and health practitioners, who, instead of being true to their calling of defending and caring for human life, are promoting acts against it.
Lagman’s and the DOH’s skewed priorities in the face of the latest SWS survey that 43% of Filipino families experience involuntary hunger in the past three months is really appalling.
Marita F. Wasan
Executive Director
Pro-Life Philippines Foundation Inc.
1043 Aurora Blvd, Quezon City
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