Atty. Howie Calleja
An avid reader of this column messaged me to share that after he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the Lung Center of the Philippines, he went into chemotherapy but instead of using this medical protocol to help in the healing process, he fears that the situation is becoming more of a liability to his health. Why so? Well, the chemo protocol given by the oncologist says that the next cycle needs to be administered at least 26 days after the first cycle; however almost 1 month (30 days more or less) after the needed next chemo cycle still no hospital bed was given by the Lung Center of the Philippines thus no treatment. So, over and above the potential medical malpractice (which is another topic for this column), it is sickening to realize that such health care management system risks the potential “drug resistance” for this patient that instead of him recovering from this disease, it might progress to something even worse. Now, can we blame the Lung Center of the Philippines?
My heart even more weeps for this patient because four specialty hospitals based in Quezon City are facing budget cuts that might hamper even more their services to the public. The National Kidney and Transplant Institute faces the largest cut at around P362 million. The Philippine Children’s Medical Center, meanwhile, could lose P344.3 million while both the Lung Center of the Philippines and the Philippine Heart Center stand to lose P53.8 million and P121 million, respectively next year based on the National Expenditure Program of the Department of Budget and Management. Even UP-PGH sees a 400 million cut for 2023. This adds more insult to injury. These hospitals are no longer helping their patients due to the insufficiency of funds for hospital beds; and yet subject them to more budget cuts. This is plain lunacy.
Even worse is that the madness does not end there. Tell this patient waiting for a hospital bed for his much-needed chemo treatment then juxtapose that to the 4.5 Billion Intelligence Fund for President BBM and the corresponding 500 Million for the Vice President — all of which will be unaudited due to nature of this funding allocation. Billions of pesos for Office of the President and Vice President, and yet people are waiting (even dying) in line just to get a hospital bed. Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo? By the way, debt servicing is much more humane if we paid our debt to save a life, rather than pay a debt to serve a leader’s capriciousness.
As tax payers, we should get our money’s worth. I am amenable to deficit spending and debt servicing if its end goal is to help our compatriots especially those who are in need. I believe that the allocation of government funds should serve the common good; and be used to spur our economy and to create more jobs but it should never be used as pork barrel disguised as intelligence funds. Loans should be used for its intended purpose lest it becomes a heartless financial burden. Moreover, if we support our hospitals and deliver basic services through our institutions there will be no need for patronage politics from politicians and their political dynasties.
Instead of increasing unaudited intelligence funds, we should increase funding for health services, education and job creation. We don’t need more “ayuda” but rather proper government funding for basic services. Good fiscal management and proper allocation is of paramount importance vis-à-vis our rising national debt. We are not a poor country but rather we are a poorly managed country led by self-serving government officials. If we can spend billions for intelligence fund, I hope we too might have “common sense” and intelligence to give this patient his much-needed chemo hospital bed.
