A House leader has thanked the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Department of Health (DOH) for facilitating Filipino cancer patients' access to "life-saving support" in the form of the P529.2 million cancer assistance fund (CAF).
“We applaud and thank the DBM, particularly Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, and the DOH for heeding our incessant call to provide funding for the government’s cancer assistance program," House Deputy Minority Leader and Bagong Henerasyon (BH) Party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera said in a statement Saturday, Oct. 15.
She said the cancer assistance program is a vital component of Republic Act (RA) 11215 or the National Integrated Cancer Control (NICC) Act of 2019.
“With this funding, the government can now provide life-saving support to cancer patients and their families who are facing financial challenges, especially amid the Covid-19 pandemic,” added Herrera.
The lady solon was the first House member to bring up the matter during the series of budget hearing at the House of Representatives last month.
The DBM recently announced that the CAF worth P529.2 million can now be used until the end of 2023.
According to the budget department, the allocation was included in the 2022 budget of the DOH under RA 11215 which provides, among others, financial support for cancer patients, persons living with cancer and survivors.
The funds were released after the DBM and the DOH signed a joint memorandum circular outlining the CAF guidelines.
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Herrera vowed to exert all efforts to restore in the proposed 2023 national budget the P500 million line item allocation for cancer patients after finding out that it was not included in the 2023 National Expenditure Program (NEP) submitted by DBM to the House.
“We will do everything in our power to make sure that the cancer assistance fund will be included in the final version of the 2023 national budget,” Herrera then said.
The NEP is the precursor of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), or proposed national budget. The GAB for 2023 is worth P5.268 trillion, the largest in the country’s history.