The House Committee on Health on Thursday, Nov. 10, approved the consolidated substitute bill that would establish the Philippine Center for Disease Prevention and Control, which was at the core of the health industry’s concerns during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The consolidated measure resulted from the merger of House Bill (HB) Nos. 9, 46, 159, 281, 359, 994, 1375, 1715, 2521, 2694, 2730, 2799, 2935, 2977, 3010, 3094, 3117, 3447, 3502, 3530, 3540, 3609, 3666, 4064, 4100, 4147, and 4778.

House Speaker Martin Romualdez and Tingog Party-list Reps. Yedda Marie Romualdez and Jude Acidre filed HB 9 on June 30.

In its explanatory note, the veteran lawmaker representing Leyte 1st district, his wife, and Acidre said the bill seeks “to modernize the country’s capabilities for public health emergency preparedness and strengthen the current bureaucracy that is mandated to prevent the spread of communicable diseases in the country through organizational and institutional reforms".

During the deliberation for the consolidation of 27 proposed measures to establish the CDC, lawmakers argued on the inclusion of both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Communicable diseases are illnesses that can be transmitted or transferred to another person.

Examples of communicable diseases are chickenpox, Covid-19, Ebola, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV, and AIDS, among others, while non-communicable diseases are heart diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes.

READ: Center for Disease Prevention and Control sought in 19th Congress

Iloilo 3rd district Rep. Lorenz Defensor raised the question, while Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Beverly Ho said that the “best practices abroad” started with communicable diseases but eventually expanded to non-communicable diseases.

Batanes lone district Rep. Ciriaco Gato Jr., chair of the House Committee on Health, maintained that the country’s future CDC should include non-communicable diseases.

He reminded his colleagues of what happened during the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

“My opinion or my sentiment on this I think as the title suggests it is both non-communicable and communicable and we can’t separate a non-communicable disease from a communicable disease when you deal with health,” Gato said.

“Remember during this pandemic karamihan na namatay sa (most of those who died because of) Covid, which is infectious, ay ‘yung meron (are those with) commorbidity na (that are) non-communicable disease, so sa (in the) approach I’m sure most of our doctors and health workers alam naman natin ang (we know that the) approach sa pasyente ay (to the patients is) holistic,” he added.

Another lawmaker said the passage of the bill on the committee level and eventually, in the third and final reading, is “very timely, very responsive” as he also pushed for the operation of the CDC “earlier than two years.”