Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon has rejected insinuations he is delaying the passage of bills that seek to obligate the national government to fund several provincial hospitals needs.

Drilon said this after a lengthy verbal exchange with Senator Christopher “Bong” Go who was frustrated over his questions on the bills that seek the nationalization and the expansion of public hospitals he was sponsoring during the plenary sessions on Thursday, May 20.

Go, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health and Demography, reasoned out that the LGUs’ budget cannot shoulder the cost of building hospitals and increasing their bed capacity and the national government should be compelled to step in to help in the construction of health facilities.

The administration lawmaker questioned why Drilon kept on asking questions when the measures are already approved in the House of Representatives. He also argued that Filipino lives are at stake every time the passage of these measures are delayed.

Go moved to terminate the interpellation of the measures he was sponsoring, but other senators supported Drilon saying questions regarding the measures should be addressed on the floor.

Drilon insisted there is a necessity to review the policy devolving health services to local government units (LGUS) as mandated under Republic Act No. 7160 or the Local Government Code of 1991.

“I am not against expanding our hospitals. It should be expanded. Our health system is one of the weakest, as shown by the pandemic experience that we have for the past year and a half,” Drilon said during the period of interpellation.

“What I am raising is, who should fund this? Under the policy today, it should be funded by the local government,” he added.

He also raised the Mandanas ruling of the Supreme Court, which in 2018, ruled that all LGUs internal revenue allotments (IRA) would be sourced from all revenues collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BOC).

Among the senators who backed Drilon were Sen. Pia Cayetano and Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri.

Cayetano noted there are “confusing issues” on the measures, noting that some of them are not simple bills seeking to increase the hospital bed capacity.

She also said some of the measures Go is sponsoring are complicated as it seeks to amend the status of hospitals from a devolved function of the LGU to a national one.

“It appears to be a bed capacity issue but there is also a nationalization issue. It’s confusing,” Cayetano stressed.

“We need to know what we are dealing with so we can ask the right questions and then help in shaping that policy,” she pointed out.

Drilon, for his part, rejected Go’s insinuation saying that they are merely raising “legitimate issues.”

“This involves the Mandanas ruling and its effect on the fiscal ability on the government to respond to its need. Maybe the Cabinet is also concerned about this,” he pointed out.

“I take exception to the motive on my part. Attribution of motive of malice, the uses, ‘Bakit pinapatagal pa natin ito (why are we prolonging this)?’ It implies I am doing it simply to prolong it. But if the good sponsor can answer questions in a more precise way, instead of asking for a suspension, we might finish this faster. But I resent and take strong exception that we are prolonging this,” the minority leader said.