The delay in the release of the national budget under the General Appropriations Act of 2019 is one of the several external factors contributing to the delay of the salaries and deployment of our health workers, according to the Department of Health.
“We assure our dedicated health workers our support and that steps are being taken into resolving this collaboratively with other concerned government offices and local government units [LGUs],” the DOH said in a statement.
“We recognize that our health workers are the backbone of a strong health system,” it added.
“They are important in realizing Universal Health Care. There are gaps that clearly need to be addressed and we want to start building the health reforms that we need through the UHC law.”
Upon the release of the GAA, the DOH said approximately 26,000 Human Resource for Health, including rural health doctors, public health nurses, rural health midwives, dentists, medical technologists, pharmacists, nutritionist-dieticians and other health workers under the HRH Deployment Program will be hired.
Of this, 17,205 positions will be dedicated to nurses. They will receive full benefits similar to the benefits of a permanent employee, a policy that the DOH has actively pushed for.
“This is our direct response to the need to augment health workers, but we would like to reiterate that the HRH program only works with the strong support of the LGUs,” the DOH said.
“As we always say, health is everybody’s responsibility and collectively, we can build a health system where no Filipino is left behind.”
As this developed, Senator Panfilo Lacson said the latest ‘caper’ by the House leadership in making “pork insertions” in the P3.757-teillion budget for 2019 after it was ratified in a bicameral conference committee would amount to a violation of the 1987 Constitution.
“If you notice, the budget bill has not been transmitted to Malacañang in spite of the bicam report being ratified by both houses of Congress more than two weeks ago,” Lacson said.reLacson said he received information that the House leadership is still waiting for several congressmen to finalize the submission of their individual projects.
“This is not to mention that insertions and realignments were me even after the bicameral report ratification,” he said.
Lacson said that technically speaking, it may not constitute post-legislation enactment since the President has not yet signed the budget measure, he can see a clear abuse of discretion especially if done without the concurrence of the Senate.
He said that the House move is also in utter disregard of the Supreme Court’s 2013 landmark ruling.
According to Lacson, he had talked to some congressmen who expressed anxiety that the pork barrel allocations of at least 60 congressmen were slashed following the bicam ratification.
“Whatever it is, these are things that they do for greed. It’s a shame and revolting, to say the least,” Lacson said.