Four specialty hospitals in Quezon City suffered huge budget cuts in the proposed P5.268-trillion national budget, with their total allocation next year reduced by P880.7 million.
This was revealed by House Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto who described the slashed 2023 budget of the hospitals as “all deep and none superficial.”
He identified these specialty hospitals as the Lung Center of the Philippines, the Philippine Heart Center, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI), and the Philippine Children’s Medical Center.
From the P684 million in the 2022 General Appropriations Act (GAA), the proposed budgetary subsidy for the Lung Center of the Philippines will be reduced to P630.2 million, or down by P53.7 million.
The Philippine Heart Center gets a proposed P1.76 billion funding for 2023 under the National Expenditure Program or NEP. This is lower than the P1.88 billion that was included in this year’s budget.
Recto, representative of Batangas’ 6th district, also stated that the NKTI received the biggest cut of P362 million as its proposed budget went down from P1.5 billion in 2022 to P1.15 billion in 2023.
Also facing a substantial budget reduction is the Philippine Children’s Medical Center, from P1.5 billion to P1.15 billion, or a P344 billion cutback.
READ: Marcos admin keeps P5.268-T 2023 proposed budget
Despite the proposed budget cuts, Recto remains confident the originally recommended budgets allotted to these specialty hospitals will be restored by Congress “if the past will be the guide.”
“The yearly ritual is that those tasked to prepare the national budget will propose an amount lower than the current year’s, and then both chambers restore the cuts or even increase the subsidy,” he said in a statement.
The lawmaker asserted the four hospitals should be “spared (from) budget cuts, not because these are legacy institutions close to the President’s heart as they were built by his parents, but because these are excellent hospitals our people have come to value.”
“Yung Heart Center is an indispensable national necessity. It is a referral hospital. Kung kailangan i-vulcanize ang ugat sa puso mo, ito at ang PGH (Philippine General Hospital) ang mga (If the veins in your heart need to be vulcanized, this and PGH are the) hospitals of last resort,” Recto said.
Based on their charters, these hospitals are classified as government corporations, and as such, their appropriations in the national budget are officially called “budgetary support”.
Next year’s proposed national budget is currently being deliberated, with the House Committee on Appropriations tackling per agency briefings.
The lower chamber aims to pass the proposed national budget on third and final reading by the end of September.
READ: House to finish budget process before Oct. 1
Recto said those who recommended the subsidy cut for the Quezon City-based hospitals “may have slept” through President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address last July wherein “he hailed the four as worthy of replication in regional centers.”
“Or they might have missed the line in PBBM’s Budget Message where he again reiterated this dream,” he said, adding that “somebody probably did not get the memo.”