Senators questioned State economic managers today why the appropriation for health services for next year decreased.
They said that it should have been increased to fully fund the government’s efforts to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the Senate Committee on Finance hearing on the proposed P4.5-trillion national budget for 2021, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said he cannot understand why the government only allocated P131-billion for the Department of Health (DoH) for next year despite a current health crisis brought about by the pandemic.
“The budget does not sufficiently address the protection of public health which is key to our economic recovery. I don’t remember any other budget in the past where public health assumes such great importance in economic recovery. It is only this year and yet I think your budget does not respond adequately on that point. Hopefully you can take that into account,” Drilon told the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
“We need to improve on our (COVID) testing, contact tracing…we need to improve the treatment (against COVID). How can we achieve these policies when you have reduced the DoH budget?” he said.
Drilon said that while there are questions about Health Secretary Francisco Duque III’s capabilities, the government ought to prioritize and allocate higher shares for health services in next year’s budget.
Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado said that the decrease in the DoH’s budget was due to the fact that the government “was able to correspond to capital investments” and has already invested huge funds for the procurement of testing machines this year.
Next year’s budget of the DoH, Avisado said, would be focused on “consummables” such as test kits and additional personal protective equipment or PPEs for the country’s health care workers.
Meanwhile, Drilon questioned why government economic managers allocated P16.4 billion for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
He said that next year’s budget for the NTF-ELCAC is higher than the proposed budget of the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) which is only at P15.9 bilion, Department of Tourism (DoT) which is only at P3.6 billion, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) which only has P5.5 billion, and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) which only has P7.9 billion.
“Are we saying that communist insurgency is a bigger threat than our unemployment, our poverty situation, our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)…bigger than the shutting down of our tourism industry which suffered the most?” Drilon asked.
Avisado said that the funds for the NTF-ELCAC would be given to communities that have been cleared of communist insurgency and will be given directly to local government units (LGUs) for their requested projects.
Drilon fears that the proposed P16.4-billion fund lodged in the Barangay Development Program of the NTF-ELCAC in the proposed 2021 national budget would be used for the upcoming 2022 national and local elections.
He said that the task force is under the Office of the President.
“Let’s be candid. Next year is an election year and here is a secretariat who will be playing God to the requests of the barangays. When you have a system like this, it can be clearly used for political purposes especially that 2022 is an election year,” Drilon said.
“I call a spade a spade. I am being candid with you. I am not new in this bureaucracy. When you have an office, not a regular line agency but just somebody or a task force, who will be approving and disapproving the requests of barangays, you can imagine the political favors that can be done out of this system,” Drilon said.