‘P2.2B still available for FP commodities’

ALLOW US to respond to the Inquirer’s Jan. 14 editorial, “The cruelest cut,” pertaining to the Department of Health 2016 budget for the Family Health and Responsible Parenting (FHRP) program.

The FHRP budget for this year was reduced by P1 billion but the requirements of the program will still be met, for several reasons:

There remains P2.2 billion in the 2016 General Appropriations Act for family planning (FP) commodities. In other words, it is not a zero budget. It is up to the DOH to determine how this amount will be used.

Family planning medicines and supplies that were procured in the third and final quarters of last year are expected to be distributed up to middle of this year.

From last year’s budget, data from the Department of Budget and Management show that P1.238 billion has yet to be obligated as of Sept. 30, 2015. This amount or its current running balance is still available for use until the end of 2016.

The DOH may also use its 2015 agency savings, estimated at P8.8 billion.

Overall, the funds that can be tapped would far more exceed P1 billion. And in making the difficult decision, the Senate committee on finance freed up funding for equally critical programs.

For the first time, the national budget has allocation for the payment of the total administrative disability pension for surviving spouses of deceased World War II veterans and for the partial payment for pension of living postwar veterans who are at least 80 years of age as of 2016—to the tune of P4.77 billion. We gave an across-the-board additional support of P2.87 billion for all 114 state universities and colleges, as well as for the social pension of indigent senior citizens. The total allocation of the DOH and its attached agencies—namely, the Lung Center of the Philippines, National Kidney and Transplant Institute, Philippine Children’s Medical Center, Philippine Heart Center, and Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Health Care—for assistance to indigent patients is higher than President Aquino’s proposal.

It can be said that this year’s budget is the most climate-resilient, sustainable and inclusive budget in our nation’s history. Perhaps the Inquirer can do a story on these great strides made.

—RACHEL SIBUGAN-HERRERA, chief legal counsel, Office of Senator Loren Legarda