"Let's continue the fight against this disease."
"Let's continue the fight against this disease."
One of the most important pieces of legislation signed into law by President Duterte this year is the National Integrated Cancer Control Act. This is a landmark legislative initiative by a nationwide alliance of cancer stakeholders to institutionalize a comprehensive and holistic approach to addressing the long-neglected gaps in cancer control. These gaps cause unnecessary deaths at a rate of thousands of Filipinos each year.
The passage of the law shows the virtually unanimous support of the Senate and House of Representatives to a long-neglected health issue that data has shown to be the third-leading cause of adult deaths, and fourth in child mortality. According to the Philippine Cancer Facts and Estimates of the Department of Health (DOH), there are 11 new cases and seven deaths every hour for adult cancer and eight deaths per day for childhood cancer in the Philippines. It is estimated that 110,000 new cancer cases and over 66,000 cancer deaths per year. These are alarming numbers.
The law aims to make quality cancer care and treatment more accessible and affordable especially for the lower income cancer patients. The programs under NICCA aim to decrease the overall mortality and catastrophic impact of childhood cancer, adult cancer and decrease preventable cancer in adults and children. The programs will also target the prevention of metastasis, cancer recurrence, and secondary cancer.
The law also mandates the creation of the National Integrated Cancer Control Council under the DOH. This will act as the planning, policy making, and coordinating body for the implementation of the NICCA.
Likewise, it mandates the creation of the Philippine Cancer Center to provide training to medical professionals, support cancer research and establish regional cancer centers.
Recognizing the need for adequate funding to implement all these programs, a Cancer Assistance Fund managed by the DOH to receive outside donations that would complement government funding, solicit and receive donations.
The NICCA is already getting international attention as benchmark legislation for cancer control but now that we have the law and the recently signed Implementing Rules and Regulations, the government must now allocate funds to start implementing the law.
As one of the active proponents of the law and a Convenor of CitizenWatch Philippines, we have been working in partnership with the Cancer Coalition of the Philippines as the main proponents of the NICCA. Now that the legislative challenge has been hurdled, the immediate concern is to secure initial funding in the 2020 national budget.
Quite disturbing, the proposed DOH budget does not have a specific line item for the Cancer Assistance Fund or anything on Cancer Control. With some prodding from cancer stakeholders and Congressional co-authors of the NICCA, DOH Secretary Duque has formally endorsed changes in the 2020 DOH budget, which includes the creation of the Cancer Assistance Fund line item with total of P463 million for the implementation of the NICCA.
The proposed programs under this line item is distributed as follows: 1) Early Lung Cancer Detection and Treatment Access Program at P20.8 million; 2) Early Colorectal Cancer Detection Access Program at P16.5 million; 3) Early Cervical Cancer Detection Access Program using HPV DNA test at P28 million; 4) Thyroid Cancer Treatment and Surveillance Access Program at P4.7 million; 5) Breast Cancer Diagnostics Access Program at P60.9 million; 6) Medicines Access Program for Blood Cancer at P25.8 million; 7) Augmentation for Breast Cancer Medicines Access Program at P93.6 million; 8) Childhood cancer Medicines Access Program at P12.7 million; 9) Breast Cancer Medicines Access Program at P171.4 million. Total proposed budget for the Cancer Assistance Fund is P463,676,854, mostly offering early detection and diagnostics and some treatment of selected cancers for about 67,000 patients.
From a lay person, looking at the estimated 110,000 new cancer cases per year plus thousands more already fighting cancer, many still undocumented cases and all the programs mandated in the NICCA, the proposed budget is far from adequate. To be fair, the law took effect after the 2020 DOH budget was prepared and the boosting of the DOH’s capacity to implement NICCA still must be done. Amending the DOH budget with a specific line item for the Cancer Assistance Fund is a good start.
We must remind all our lawmakers that millions of Filipinos affected by the catastrophic financial effects of cancer are counting on them to ensure that initial funding for the Cancer Assistance Fund is secured in the 2020 General Appropriations Act.
Let us all continue the fight against cancer. The urgency for cancer control is undebatable and the decades of neglect must stop now. Reach by your letters, email, tweets, Facebook posts, and if you or a friend personally knows a congressman, a senator and most especially the President. Kindly appeal to them to ensure more funding for the Cancer Assistance Fund.