Deputy Speaker and Batangas 6th district Rep. Ralph Recto on Sunday, Feb. 5, trumpeted Congress’ work to boost to P1.56 billion the line-item funding for two cancer funds in the 2023 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
In a statement, the veteran lawmaker lauded the insertion—from zero to P1.56 billion—of the additional budget to help millions of Filipinos who suffer from different kinds of cancer every year.
“This is the result of a multi-partisan, bicameral push,” Recto said.
“The cancer fund is not a tumor that must be excised from the budget. It is a treatment tool which, on the contrary, must be boosted,” he added.
In 2021, cancer killed almost 60,000 Filipinos, or one every nine minutes.
The Batangas lawmaker lamented that treatment for cancer would bankrupt Filipino families.
“But 7 in 10 cancer patients drop out of treatment regimen for lack of funds. Filipino families are one cancer diagnosis away from bankruptcy,” he said, admitting that state funds “to fight cancer are not enough, and way, way below the ideal.”
However, he said it is “cruel” to invoke budget deficit as an excuse to cut cancer funds from government spending, while he praised health and budget officials for moving the validity of 2022 Cancer Assistance Program’s P529.2 million appropriation until the end of 2023.
“Money for cancer fight should not be perishable,” Recto said.
The P1.054 billion is lodged under the budget of the Department of Health (DOH), and is aimed at cancer prevention, detection, treatment and care pursuant to Republic Act 11215, or the National Integrated Cancer Control Act.
Specifically, it will fund the “procurement and delivery of cancer, supportive care and palliative care medicines covering the eight treatable cancer types,” as stipulated by a special provision in the 2023 GAA.
There is also the P500-million “Cancer Assistance Fund” for cancer prevention, detection, treatment, diagnostics, and care for eight priority cancer types.
Another government assistance fund that cancer patients can tap is the P32.6 billion “Medical Assistance to Indigent and Financially-Incapacitated Patients” in the 2023 GAA.
The budget, which will be administered by the DOH, is up from P21.3 billion last year
After the earmarks for cancer funds disappeared in the 2023 National Expenditure Program (NEP), which serves as the proposed national budget, DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire asked Congress to restore the line-item appropriations for the programs.
Recto backed her call, emphasizing that “restoring the cancer fund in the national budget is one doctor’s order we cannot ignore.”