Lawmaker wants RH budget given to doctors

A MEMBER of the minority bloc on Wednesday said that the proposed P400-million budget allocation for contraceptives in the proposed 2011 budget of the Department of Health (DOH) could be spent for the salaries of about 3,000 medical specialists.

Rep. Mitos Magsaysay of Zambales said that in the order of priorities doctors “clearly come ahead of condoms and pills.”

With only one government doctor for every 29,000 Filipinos, “there is no doubt that doctor shortage is one problem area in the health system that needs to be addressed,” Magsaysay said

Magsaysay said that rechanelling the “birth control devices fund” to hiring of doctors “would yield more benefits and serve the pubic interest more” than using it for its original purpose.

The Health department, she said plans to employ 136 part-time doctors with the rank of Medical Specialist II plus 10 full-time doctors of this rank next year at a cost of P18.7 million.

“Thus, for P400 million, we can hire 2,897 part-time medical specialists and 213 full-time medical specialists. At this number, we can deploy two of them per town or 34 of them in each of the top 90 public hospitals,” Magsaysay said.

“If you assess their importance, there is no contest between the two. Doctors win hands down over condoms, “ she added.

She reiterated her call that the P1-billion fund for “family health including family planning” in next year’s Health department budget be subject to a condition that will prevent its disbursement for the purchase of artificial birth control devices.

“There should be some form of a budgetary contraceptive in the form of a provision in the General Appropriations Act that will prevent the DOH from using the money for a shopping spree for bills and condoms,” Magsaysay said.

Magsaysay earlier warned that with the remote possibility of Congress giving birth to a Reproductive Health (RH) bill, Malacañang “may just short-circuit the legislative process and take the administrative route” by ordering the mass distribution of contraceptives.

“If Congress cannot give birth to an RH law, then Noynoy [President Benigno Aquino 3rd] can father an illegitimate offspring through administrative conception,” Magsaysay said.

“With money authorized by Congress in the national budget, Noynoy can just order the DOH to stock clinics with contraceptives and you have the de facto implementation of the RH law,” she said.

“But if the language of the budget is clear—that you cannot do the above, then the Malacañang has no option but to comply, “ Magsaysay said.

For his part, Davao City representative, Karlo Alexei Nograles, a Lakas-Kampi CMD member in the majority bloc, said that reproductive health and family planning do not need a law.

“Apart from confirming our suspicion that this Reproductive Health hullabaloo is all about profit for our condom makers and contraceptive manufacturers, this decision of the executive to allot millions to buy condoms and other contraceptives only makes more obvious what this government’s preferred policy is on population management,” Nograles added.

According to Nograles, any Reproductive Health measure that is passed will only put a legal and budgetary stamp on the policy, which may prohibit them from questioning it later on.

“That is why I maintain the position that we do not need legislation for reproductive health,” he said.

Nograles said that there is nothing in the country’s existing laws and statutes that is preventing the government from buying millions-worth of condoms and other contraceptives purportedly for population management so therefore, it is completely unnecessary for Congress to be crafting a law that basically compels the government to do the same thing. –Ruben D. Manahan 4th Reporter, Manila Times