CEBU CITY – Cebu Rep. Vincent Franco “Duke” Frasco has filed House Bill No. 3879 establishing the Heart Center of the Philippines-Visayas in Liloan, Cebu.

He said that the measure that he filed Monday, Aug. 22, is in response to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos’ pronouncement during his first State-of-the-Nation Address last month that specialty hospitals like the Heart Center should not only be available in the National Capital Region but also in other areas of the country.

Frasco cited data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), as compiled from the Department of Health (DOH), the Philippine Heart Association (PHA), government and private hospitals, and other healthcare facilities all over the country, that says

that ischemic heart diseases were the leading causes of death from January to October 2021 with 110,332 cases or 18.3 percent of the total deaths in the country, up 28 percent from the 86,164 deaths or 16.9 percent of the total deaths in the country during the same period in 2020.

“It is evident that there is a need to put up Heart Centers in the provinces in order to decentralize the services in the National Capital Region. With the increasing number of heart disease cases in the country, medical services should be made accessible and affordable to Filipinos nationwide, especially those living in the remote areas,” said Frasco.

rasco explained that Liloan is an ideal location of the Heart Center as the town is situated in the country’s No. 1 province, Cebu, and is the gateway to the north of Cebu and a convenient access to the cities of Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu, and Cebu and to the cities and towns from the west and south of Cebu.

“At present, there is an increasing number of residents in the Visayas diagnosed with heart illnesses. It is thus imperative that specialized medical services should be provided for those with heart and other allied diseases in the Visayas area, especially the poor and less fortunate in life, without regard to race, creed, color or political belief,” he said.