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MANILA, Philippines – Senator Franklin Drilon criticized the Duterte administration for cutting the Department of Health (DOH) budget by P49 billion despite hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The proposed national budget for 2021 was drawn up as if there was no pandemic that we had to deal with,” Senator Franklin Drilon said in a radio interview. “It does not address the challenges we face due to the pandemic. Does not respond [to our needs]. “
Drilon, the leader of the minority floor, noted that of its current budget of P180 billion, Malacañang allocated only P131 billion for DOH next year when the government was expected to spend on the novel coronavirus vaccine, which already it has infected more than 300,000 Filipinos.
Drilon said the corruption scandal at Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) involving Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, which he and his colleagues had exposed, does not justify the budget cut in the healthcare sector.
“We need more budget for [DOH] because our problem right now is the pandemic. If people do not trust the government’s ability to deal with the pandemic, the economy will not be dynamic again, ”he said.
“We should allocate more funds to the health sector. The corruption at PhilHealth was really bad, but that’s a different problem, ”he said.
Drilon also criticized the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for keeping P10 billion in cash aid that would have benefited at least four million low-income families.
Increase public spending He noted that even Finance Secretary Carlos Domínguez III had previously said that the government should increase public spending to help the economy, which has been reeling from business closures that have put millions of people out of work. Filipinos.
“If that’s the government’s policy, it seems that the DSWD didn’t listen because they refused to spend the P10 billion,” the senator said.
“[Next year’s national] The budget must be, above all, oriented to health. There is no economy to speak of… if citizens are afraid to leave due to a lack of confidence in the government’s ability to tackle the pandemic, ”he said in a separate statement.
During Senate deliberations last week on the proposed DSWD budget for 2021, DSWD officials said they reduced the number of Social Improvement Program beneficiaries from 18 million families during the first tranche to 14 million households in the second. phase due to an order from Malacañang. .
The head of DSWD’s legal office, Paul Tacorda, said they received a letter from the President’s Office on May 22 instructing them to reduce the recipients to “12 to 14 million” and release the remaining financial aid to the “group on the list of wait identified President. “
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