Former Department of Health (DOH) secretary-turned-congresswoman Janette Garin has frowned over the P4.2-billion budget cut in the health agency's communicable disease prevention allocation for 2023.
The funds were reportedly transferred to the health promotion program, a move she considered as a misstep in prioritization as the country is still under the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We are in dire need of funds and these funds was transferred to the health promotion office and to the blood center and other voluntary blood services, laudable naman po ang programa pero mahirap po kasi iexplain sa taumbayan na ang tinapyas ng DOH ay para sana sa program ng communicable diseases (that program is laudable, but it's hard to explain to the people that the DOH slashed the budget for communicable diseases)," said Garin, who represents Iloilo's 1st district.
Communicable diseases include Covid, tuberculosis, moneypox, leptospirosis, encephalitis and the human immunodeficiency virus/ acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), which has already seen a fresh surge due to disruptions in health services caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The country’s cumulative confirmed HIV caseload have breach the 100,000-mark within the first half of this year based on the national HIV/AIDS registry.
"Marami pa tayong challenges, ang pondo na ito ay pwede na ibili ng dagdag na gamot kontra Covid, pwede ibili para sa monkeypox and gamitin sa ibang pangangailangan (We still face a lot of challenges, these funds could have been used to buy more medicines against Covid or monkeypox or used for other needs). My point is the pandemic is not yet over, bakit natin tatapyasan ang control and prevention disease (why would we slash the funds for disease control and prevention),” Garin explained.
DOH Oficer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergerie earlier defended the reduction on next year’s budget for communicable diseases by saying that the DOH wasn't going to procure Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and GeneExpert Cartridges used to test tuberculosis, covid, hepatitis and HIV.
But Garin pointed out that prevention and control of communicable diseases does not only mean purchasing PPE and test cartridges.
“Maganda ang health promotion nandyan ang policy development, positive building advocacy maganda naman po ito, pero babalik ulit tayo sa mas importante ba yung health impact assessment and action research kaysa salbahin natin ang kalusugan ng ating kababayan (Health promotion is good, there's policy development, positive building advocacy, these are good, but we go back to the question, is health impact assessment and action research more important than saving the health of our people,” Garin said.
In the recent budget briefing of the House Committee on Appropriations co-chaired by Garin, Vergerie said that the DOH proposed a P95 billion covid response budget for 2023 but only P24.98 billion was approved by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
The lady solon said the covid response budget was too low considering that the DOH themselves admitted that they are not looking at the end of pandemic right now since the country do not have a high population immunity.