Senator Nancy Binay on Sunday, Sept. 12 renewed her appeal for the state economic managers to boost the government’s COVID-19 response by allocating a bigger budget for contact tracing in the proposed P5.024-trillion national budget for 2022.

Echoing other colleagues sentiment, Binay said she is dismayed that the national capital outlay for next year remains non-compliant to COVID-19 response.

“Ang mindset when the budget was made, there would still be COVID next year. Bakit walang nagtanong sa DILG? Bakit walang budget for contact tracing (We should have asked the Deparmtent of Interior and Local Government, why is there no budget for contact tracing)?" asked Binay.

During the hearing of the Senate Committee on Finance’s hearing on the 2022 national budget, senators grilled the DILG over its contact tracing efforts saying the agency should have given more focus on contact tracing as a means to effectively stop further spread of the COVID-19 virus.

“We understand the challenges, but there's a mounting necessity to scale up our contact tracing capacities,” she pointed out.

“Napaka-crucial ng contact tracing is especially as infections of new Covid variants keep rising. Yung 2022 budget mismo hindi (itself is not) compliant to COVID response,” she added.

Binay said she cannot accept that the DILG and Department of Health (DOH) have no systematic plans or even the slightest effort to kickstart or scale up contract tracing in next year’s budget.

“Wala bang nakaisip sa kanila na importanteng elemento yun at kailangan bigyan ng allocation (Didn’t anyone think how this is a very important element and should have been given allocation)?” she pointed out.

“Kaya di nakapagtataka kung bakit after more than a year, pagdating sa testing at contact tracing, kulelat pa rin tayo, (That’s why it’s not surprising why after more than a year, we stil lag behind when it comes to testing and contact tracing)?” the senator stressed.