Presidential aspirant Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ R. Marcos Jr. has vowed to reorganize the country’s health care system to ensure that the dysfunctions that the country experienced during the pandemic would not be repeated.
“After we cope with this (pandemic), let us revisit the system. Let us use our experience to fix it so that when another medical issue arises in the future we will be ready,” Marcos said.
Asked about the predicaments that the frontliners encountered during the outbreak, Marcos said he was saddened when he saw the medical practitioners walk out and organized a rally “because their Special Risk Allowance was not given to them.”
“Sabi ko hindi dapat umabot sa ganun, huwag natin pabayaang umabot sa ganyang klaseng sitwasyon (Let us not allow such a situation to recur). If you ask me what are my plans if elected, the first thing we have to fix is the healthcare system because we saw what was lacking during the pandemic, and among those were the benefits of our nurses,” he added.
Marcos said the government did what it could to alleviate the situation, but it could only do so much “because nobody saw it coming.”
“Nayanig ang lahat dahil sa pandemya (We were all shaken because of the pandemic).There were a lot of problems especially in terms of funding. We always try to find ways to generate funds, but let’s hope that those were used properly,” he added.
“The transfer of the funds from different agencies, from different departments, those that were transferred to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the problems that came out in Philhealth, in DOH (Department of Health), those things should have been avoided. And this will happen again if we don’t fix the system,” he stressed.
Aside from budget, the focus should also be on “an organizational structure” that would be ready to respond to any contingencies, he explained.
“We have to rationalize, if you think about it, IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force) is an ad hoc organization that was just put together somehow in a hurry to try to respond to COVID-19. Now it seems that we will overcome this, and when we do, let us organize and put up a structure that will be ready to respond,” he said.
Marcos pointed out that the frontliners should have strong support from the government, “not only financially but also morally so that they will understand that we appreciate and recognize their work.”