Nonsense Priorities

by Koozae Calvin Umali | Hachimoji

The Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and the Philippine Genome Center (PGC), institutions that play vital roles in the current public health scene, are both under the University of the Philippines. However, with the looming budget cut for the university, the operations of these institutions could be affected. During a national health crisis, the Duterte government, through its proposed national budget, proved that health and education are not its top priority, disregarding the facts that the Philippines is the last country in the world that opened its schools and that the pandemic response is still baffled with controversies even after more than one and a half years later. Like a genetic mutation, the deleterious priorities of this administration will prematurely terminate and change the encoded future of this country.

Situation on the ground

Last September, the Philippines, through the health department, logged its highest single-day tally of COVID-19 cases, with 26,303 cases recorded. This brought the positivity rate to 27.6%—which is fourfold higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended rate of 5%. This tally also sealed the Philippines as the top country in the Western Pacific region, and 19th in the world in terms of COVID-19 cases. 

Last July, the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) sought funding from the government and appealed for donations from the private sector for the expansion of whole genome sequencing in the VisMin area. A minimum of ₱100 million was estimated in order to conduct genome sequencing which checks for the variants from the COVID-positive swabs. The World Health Organization recommends to sequence 5% of the total cases, however, the PGC stated that only around 0.86% of cases from January to July were sequenced but the center’s goal was to shorten the turnaround time of three to five days for the results. Only the laboratory of PGC in UP Diliman is currently sequencing the samples.

In line with the daily record-breaking cases of COVID-19, the healthcare sector received the big blows caused by the influx of COVID-19 cases in the hospitals. The healthcare capacity was very much overwhelmed. One instance is when the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), a major COVID-19 referral hospital in the country, temporarily closed its doors for emergency admissions due to the peaking number of COVID-19 patients last August. One month later, PGH reported that it was operating beyond its capacity, while hundreds of patients still waited for admission.

Moreover, for almost two years, face-to-face classes in all levels in the country were suspended. From basic to tertiary education, all shifted into the virtual realm of online learning. This exposed a whole new world of problems and issues such as the lack of gadgets for the online setup, slow internet connection speeds, modules with errors for offline learners, homes being non-conducive for learning and working, and burnout for both students and teachers amid the pandemic.

Attributed to the increasing rates of vaccine administration in the country, as of November 2021, daily cases of COVID-19 dropped down to around 1,000, logging lowest single-day tallies and positivity rates in the past months. Even so, new cases are still recorded, and this downward trend prompted the government to relax further the restrictions placed all over the country. After the discombobulating wordplay of community quarantines and lockdowns, the government served new rules on yet another version of confusing pandemic responses—now the alert level system. Only one thing is for sure, the government has fully utilized the thesaurus. 

Now that the cases are going down and the hospitals are trying to recover from the recent surges, issues now regarding the compensation of healthcare workers (HCWs) and hospitals are floating in the air. One and a half years into the pandemic, the service of HCWs was paid back by a not-so-prompt and a not-so-huge compensation from the government. 

Along with the lifting of the mandatory use of face shields on selected areas, limited face-to-face classes also resumed in some schools, making the Philippines the last country in the world who opened its schools this November. 

Top budget next year

Last August, the Duterte government, through the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), proposed an all-time high of ₱5.024 trillion for the 2022 national budget. The last one for Duterte, this is the highest recorded budget proposal in the history of the Philippine government.

The largest chunk of the budget amounting to ₱1.181 trillion will be alloted into the Build, Build, Build program of the government. Despite Duterte saying that this proposed budget will sustain the COVID-19 response efforts, only 4.9% (₱248.4 billion) was allocated to the health sector. It is also worth noting that the allocation for education was increased by 2.9% with a budget of ₱773.6 billion, the highest in all departments of the executive branch. 

UP down the budget line

The University of the Philippines System proposed a ₱36.5-billion budget for 2022. UP plans to allocate the proposed budget on infrastructure projects and regularization of teaching staff and personnel. According to an article of the Philippine Collegian, ₱15.6 billion will be allocated to the salaries, wages, and compensation benefits of its faculty, staff, and workers; ₱9.3 billion will go into the daily operational cost of the university; and the remaining ₱11.5 billion would go to the 76 infrastructure and equipment projects across the system. For PGH, UP allocated around 25% of its budget, amounting to ₱8.6 billion, an increase from this year’s ₱6.87-billion budget. Although infrastructure projects and regularization of the university’s contractual workers are at hand, other matters pertaining to student education aid are not included in the proposal. 

However, with the budget ceilings imposed by DBM and the history of budget cuts that the university has received during Duterte's term, big budget deficits are expected. 

DBM submitted their budget proposal for UP, allocating only ₱20.1 billion. This is just over half of the proposed budget, and is ₱1.3 billion lower than the current budget of UP this 2021 (₱21.5 billion). PGH and PGC both rely on the university, so a budget cut for the university could also translate into budget cuts for the institutions that fulfill vital roles in this pandemic. For instance, the budget proposal of DBM will plunge the university hospital’s budget down to ₱5.66 billion.

Looking away from the pressing issues

In line with the proposed budget cut, various problems of the university that are aggravated by this online setup would remain. Hiring new workers, including teaching staff, could alleviate the problem of insufficient number of classes during registration periods, especially that UP lowered the quota for the number of students in the class, which in turn made it harder for students to enroll in their courses. The proposed budget of UP was supposed to create and open 2,007 new plantilla items, however it was rejected like last year. In a statement of Rise for Education Alliance of the UP College of Education, it also pointed out that this budget cut could affect the chances of the future Iskolar ng Bayan to get a free tertiary education in UP, and would challenge the university in re-opening its campuses for a safe resumption of face-to-face classes. Being the last country to hold limited face-to-face classes since the pandemic started, along with the multitude of issues its learners are facing amid the pandemic, while its officials claimed victory and success, it goes to show that education is not a priority.

More so, in a health crisis like this, it should be obvious that the priorities of the government would be more on the healthcare sector, however, it isn’t. Instead of improving its facilities to better cater the patients, the budget cut would affect PGH. As PGH Director Dr. Gerardo Legaspi said in an article, special attention should be given to infrastructure elements so as to effectively prepare a hospital in responding to a pandemic like this one.

Meanwhile, as the government cites limited fiscal resources as one of the reasons for the budget cuts, it was revealed that Duterte proposed a whopping ₱28.1 billion budget for its National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). This is a 75%-increase (₱11.66 billion) from its last year’s budget. Looking at it, NTF-ELCAC’s budget would be ₱8 billion higher than UP.

In this COVID-19 pandemic, the government chose to fund and allocate more budget to a controversial agency, which is currently flagged because apparently only 1% of its projects were completed. This begs the question: where did the budget go? 

Right now more than ever, the budget should be re-allocated to COVID-19 response or to institutions like PGC and PGH, which are actively helping its citizens through science and service to the country. 

With the budget proposal document titled ‘’People’s Proposed Budget: Sustaining the Legacy of Real Change for the Future Generations, ’’ questions start to pop up: Is it really the people’s proposal? Is this the legacy and change that you want the future generations to have? Considering its failure in addressing the current issues on health and education one and a half years later, then maybe, it goes without saying that their current priorities are nonsense.

#NoToBudgetCut
#LigtasNaBalikEskwela

#SolusyongMedikalHindiMilitar

#DefundNTFELCAC