On World Health Day, the Council for People's Development and Governance (CPDG) urged election hopefuls to push for a "people-center and planet-friendly" public health system.
As Covid-19 cases in the country decline and more Filipinos start seeing the hope of living normally, CPDG stressed the need to "learn from the crisis" brought by the pandemic and assert a systematic overhaul of the current healthcare system.
CPDG Spokesperson Liza Maza said the "new normal" should entail increased public funds for healthcare services.
Maza also called on candidates to ensure that the planning and implementation of healthcare services "cut across areas of climate action, environmental protection, gender and development, and focus in marginalized groups."
She, however, lamented that the government "seems to not have learned from the lessons of Covid-19," noting that the Department of Health only got a P183.37-billion budget, compared to the 220.9-billion budget of the Department of National Defense and a whopping 786.5-billion budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways.
“We have seen, felt, and experienced how government neglect of people’s rights worsened the situation that we’re in," Maza said.
Thus, we should urge candidates to veer away from this framework and adopt one that takes care of the people, especially those who are in the margins, and addresses the planetary crisis that aggravated the pandemic and its effects”, she added.
Meanwhile, Dr. Jamie Dasmarinas, a community physician from Council for Health and Development decried that mass testing is still inaccessible to the general public and contact tracing is still lagging, two years into the pandemic.
“The 9th of May gives us an opportunity to advance our programs and demands to our future leaders. Civil society needs to strive to be heard, especially in amplifying the voices from the grassroots and the margins," Maza continued.
Let us all continue to demand transformative and sustainable change in the health sector that will cater to the needs of the people and address the multi-faceted crisis our country is facing," she ended.