House Deputy Speaker and Batangas 6th district Rep. Ralph Recto is pushing for the restoration of cancer control and cancer assistance funds in the proposed 2023 budget in the form of a P1-billion item.

"I propose a P1 billion fund for cancer control and cancer assistance and I believe that fiscal space can be created to accommodate it," Recto said in a statement Thursday, Sept. 8.

"Cancer killed almost 60,000 Filipinos last year, or one every nine minutes. Seven in 10 cancer patients drop out of treatment regimen for lack of funds. Most families is one cancer diagnosis away from bankruptcy," he said.

"As they say, cancer is a disease, not a sentence. And in the budget, fighting it must be a line item," the former senator stressed.

Recto brought up the issue on the cancer funds after learning that there were no allocations made for the control and dole out of assistance in connection with the disease in the proposed P5.268-trillion national budget for next year.

Despite this, he said that "We are past the stage of passing blame on who or what was responsible for the perceived reduction to zero of the two cancer spending earmarks in next year’s proposed national budget."

"In fairness to the DBM (Department of Budget and Management), the 'mother funds' under which the Cancer Control Program and the Cancer Assistance Fund were lodged did not suffer any cuts in the proposed 2023 national budget," he said.

It is the DBM that crafts the National Expenditure Program (NEP), or proposed national budget. The NEP serves as the basis for the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), which becomes the General Appropriations Act (GAA) once signed by the President.

"Intact pa rin po (It's still intact). Yung parehong mother fund, may increase (Both mother funds were increased). Ang tinanggal lang ay ang 'earmarks' (What were removed were the 'earmarks') specifying the amounts that will go to cancer control and cancer assistance," Recto said.

Under the 2022 GAA, the Cancer Control Program (earmarked with P787 million) can be found under the “Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases”, which had a budget of P1.38 billion.

On the other hand, the Cancer Assistance Fund (earmarked with P529 million) was part of the “Social Health Protection Program”, which had a budget of P21.9 billion.

Under the 2023 NEP, the allocation for the item Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases was raised to P2.1 billion, while the fund for the Social Health Protection Program was hiked to P22.4 billion.

"Ibig sabihin walang kaltas, may dagdag pa nga; pero ang nabura ay ang earmarks (This means that there was no reduction, there was actually an increase, but the erased were the earmarks) which reserved specified amounts for cancer control and cancer assistance," he stressed.