P12-B slash in disease surveillance budget in the time of avian flu

BARBARA Tuchman’s March of Folly is still relevant today – even in the 21st century that is supposedly about innovation and forward-looking policies. Just look at how Mr. Aquino practiced a type of governance that is full of folly. Before the 2016 elections, he launched a full-scale assault on balikbayan sane policy and the national consensus to support our heroic OFWs.

Just look at his track record in vetoing any draft law for the underclass. A leader is the father to the nation’s citizens, the poor who need the most attention in particular. Mr. Aquino was painfully aware of that. Yet, he kept on thumbing down any and all policies that are for those who have less in life.

Look at how he handled the Mamasapano massacre. First were acts of clownish cluelessness. Then, he snubbed the homecoming of the - guindanao.

The Duterte administration is veering into that disastrous course, and important items in the 2018 national budget are testament to this path of folly. A lawmaker with the Makabayan 2018 budget, he claimed, the budget the agency that is as important – if not more important – than the Department of Education, will slash its vital MOOE budget by 99 percent in favor of lump sums, which the DU30 administration has condemned as “evil” and illegal.

Why? Why?

Those were the pained question from Mr. Tinio, the ACT party-list representative. Mr. Tinio did not Department of Agriculture fully engaged in easing the public health crisis by culling birds and moving on the biosecurity front – is probably the worst time to slash the MOOE allocation of the DOH, which the department’s work on disease surveillance and battling outbreaks. But contrary to the dictates of sane policy, the 2018 national budget is moving into that dangerous and ill-advised direction.

What if another pestilence deadlier disease surveillance budget, it would be a full-blown horror before anything could be done in terms of mitigation measures.

Again, in favor of the loathed lump sums.

by Mr. Tinio:

The budget for disease surveillance and epidemiology (an all-too important allocation as proven by current allocation of P14.2 billion to drop: from more than P14 billion million is a “keysa sa walang” (better

Without that important fund, the monitoring and defense against disease outbreaks would be like Mr. Who will monitor possible public health crises? What resources will the DOH use in case of outbreaks?

What other programs would suffer from the cuts? Many, and they are all vital to public health and disease prevention.

According to Mr. Tinio, the following vital health programs will also