Senator Risa Hontiveros on Wednesday urged the government to increase the funding for local disease surveillance which she noted is “alarmingly low” despite the Department of Health’s (DOH) report of a two percent surge in COVID-19 cases in the Philippines.

According to Hontiveros, the approved allocation for the Epidemiology and Surveillance Units (ESUs) meant to collate and validate data during disease outbreaks is 79 percent lower than the amount DOH has requested.

The DOH has proposed a P547-million for the ESU but the government only provided P112-million for the local disease surveillance unit.

“This particular budget allocation raises questions about our priorities,” Hontiveros said.

“Hindi dapat babaan ang pondo habang dumarami ang nagiging kritikal dahil sa (We shouldn’t lower the funds while many people are getting critical due to) COVID-19. We must fully support the DOH’s efforts to find the cause to prevent further spread of the coronavirus by allocating more funds for the ESUs,” the senator said.

Under the Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act, Hontiveros said ESUs are mandated to collect and monitor data to prepare the general public on preventing and controlling diseases during a health emergency crisis like COVID.’

But so far, only two of 79 provincial ESUs, 11 of 16 regional ESUs and nine out of 135 city ESUs are functional.

“Ang taas ng pondo natin sa hiring ng contact tracers, pero kanino sila magrereport kung walang ESU? Sasayangin din natin ang bilyon-bilyong piso kung magiging chopsuey lang pala ang proseso natin (We have so much funds for the hiring of contact tracers, but to whom will they report if there are no ESUs? We will just waste billions worth of money if we are not going to take this process seriously),” she said.

“We should not take the importance of validated and up-to-date information for granted. By under-funding ESUs, parang binugbog pa natin yung pilay na nating (we battered our already weak) health response (efforts),” Hontiveros said.

She pointed out even areas outside the National Capital Region (NCR) that were able to maintain zero infections since the start of the year are now reporting cases due to the slow contact tracing and streamlining of data.

“Dapat masigurado natin na mamuhunan ang mga systema natin for data monitoring and validation (We need to make sure our agencies are investing in data monitoring and validation),” the lawmaker stressed.

“Kahit ilang libong contact tracer ang i-hire natin, hindi ito magkakaroon ng silbi kung walang ESU na maglilinis ng datos,(Even if we hire thousands of contact tracers, it’ would be useless if we don’t have any ESUs that would create and clean up the data),” she said.