House Deputy Speaker and Batangas 6th district Rep. Ralph Recto (Facebook)

House Deputy Speaker and Batangas 6th district Rep. Ralph Recto has pinpointed "the good and the bad" in the Department of Health's (DOH) proposed budget under the P5.768-trillion National Expenditure Program (NEP) for 2024. 

Recto did so ahead of the House Committee on Appropriations' deliberation on the DOH budget, which is scheduled to take place on Sept. 6. 

First, the good news: Recto said  he Marcos administration is seeking nearly a half-a-billion peso increase – or to P2.02 billion – for cancer control and cancer patient assistance funds in the 2024 spending plan. 

Now, the bad news: the proposed “agency proper” budget for 2024 will suffer a P10 billion cut, the former Senate President Pro Tempore said. 

The DOH budget will dip from P209.1 billion this year to P199.1 billion next year, as proposed by Malacanang, Recto said. 

But not all is lost, as Batangueño quickly pointed out. "Just like in the past, Congress and the executive, in the spirit of cooperation, will find ways on how to increase the health budget.” 

Congress is  composed of the House of Representatives and Senate, with the former getting first dibs in scrutinizing Malacañang's proposed budget. 

Recto blamed “the big payroll and overhead in maintaining a large bureaucracy, plus rising debt service” for boxing out social services. 

“If the budget were a sculpture, then revenues are the clay from which it is made from. Hindi ka maaring humulma na malaki kung kulang ang materyales mo (You can't create a huge sculpture of you lack the materials),” he said. 

But in a break from the past when Congress would chide the Palace for cutting cancer control and treatment allocations, this time the Marcos administration has proposed that this year’s Cancer Assistance Fund be doubled to P1 billion next year. 

On top of this is P1.02 billion for the Cancer Control Fund, bringing to P2.02 billion the earmarked funds to combat a disease which killed almost 60,000 Filipinos in 2021, or one every nine minutes. 

“Pwede pa idagdag dito ang proposed P28 billion para sa gamot sa susunod na taon, at panukalang P22.2 billion para pambawas ng hospital bill na nasa Medical Assistance for Indigent Fund (MAIF), Recto said in citing other sources. 

(We can also add to the total the P28 billion allocated for medicines next year, as well as the P22.2 billion subsidy for hospital bills under the Medical Assistance for Indigent Fund.)