Press Statement of Deputy Speaker and Batangas Rep. Ralph G. Recto

8 September 2022

Per DOH advice: Restore cancer funding as P1 B item in ’23 budget

Restoring the cancer fund in the national budget is one doctor’s order we cannot ignore.

And if it is the DOH Secretary herself who had issued that prescription, we have no other recourse but to follow.

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.

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, 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.

Intact pa rin po. Yung parehong mother fund, may increase. Ang tinanggal lang ay ang “earmarks” specifying the amounts that will go to cancer control and cancer assistance.

Under the 2022 GAA, ang Cancer Control Program (P787 million) ay nasa ilalim ng “Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases” na may budget na P1.38 billion. 

At ang Cancer Assistance Fund naman (P529 million) ay bahagi ng “Social Health Protection Program” na may budget na P21.9 billion.

Sa ilalim ng panukalang 2023 national budget, ang panukalang budget para sa “Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases” ay itataas sa P2.1 billion at ang sa “Social Health Protection Program” naman ay aangat bahagya at magiging P22.4 billion.

Ibig sabihin walang kaltas, may dagdag pa nga; pero ang nabura ay ang earmarks which reserved specified amounts for cancer control and cancer assistance.

How do we cure this oversight?

What the House should do is not to merely restore the earmarks, but to increase the funding for both cancer control and cancer assistance, and make them distinct and separate programs.

What should be done is not to increase the slice of cancer programs in the budget pie, but to increase the pie itself.

Cancer should not compete with other diseases in the two mother funds.

I propose a P1 billion fund for cancer control and cancer assistance and I believe that fiscal space can be created to accommodate it.

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.

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