Enhancing our pandemic resilience
EARLIER this year, we filed Senate Resolution 974 calling for an inquiry on the state of health financing in the country to determine needed legislation for strengthening our healthcare system. While Congress was on recess for the national campaign, our office conducted numerous consultative meetings with government agencies, private sector proponents and stakeholders to follow through on the resolution’s objectives.
The Senate Committee on Finance disadvantaged areas. conducted one of these meetings To address these concerns, the in early April. Various government DOH initiated talks with both public agencies and private organizations, and private labs to create a consortium including the academe shared their that would pool their resources key observations, initiatives, and towards expanding the country’s recommendations on enhancing our bio- surveillance capabilities. The pandemic resilience. DOH also recently established its
T h e D O H E p i d e m i o l o g i c a l Office of Health Laboratories in Bureau (DOH-EB) first discussed the response to the need for improved difficulties of transporting COVID-19 health diagnostics in the country. samples. Apparently, l i mited This new office is mandated to manpower and resources hampered establish the Philippine Health the Bureau’s bio- surveillance Laboratory System—a network of activities such that laboratories public health laboratories that would outside Luzon still preferred to send deliver diagnostic services towards samples to Manila despite having achieving universal healthcare and Philippine Genome Center hubs in responding to future public health Visayas and Mindanao. The DOH-EB emergencies. also reported how there is no existing Meanwhile, the Research Institute courier to regularly collect samples for Tropical Medicine ( RITM) from the regions, especially those underscored the need for a health from geographically isolated and emergency playbook or a National
Preparedness and Response Plan and recommended that all COVID- 19 related (i.e. pandemic preparation) investments should be regularly reviewed and updated.
Dr. Kenneth Hartigan-Go from the Ateneo School of Government and former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Director General then pressed the need for improved management to efficiently distribute human resources for health for better response. Moreover, Dr. HartiganGo called for a review of procurement procedures to be competitive in a fast-paced emergency and a reevaluation of rules on unproven therapies considering the lack of regulatory actions on the same.
For its part, the DTI shared i t s programs t argeting l ocal manufacturers of critical products. Among these are the Manufacturing Repurposing Program and the Mask Para sa Masa where Filipino firms were urged to repurpose their existing manufacturing capacity to produce medical-grade PPEs and other critical equipment and supplies. Another was the Domestic Bidders Preference Certifiation Program where local firms participating in government procurement projects are given a certificate of preference including a 15-percent price advantage over foreign bidders.
However, the Confederation of Philippine Manufacturers of PPEs (CPMP) argued that some of these initiatives did not flourish as expected given that actual orders for PPEs were far fewer than the demand projected
by the manufacturers who were tapped. This translated to such a huge loss, as CPMP shared that its partner-firms invested some $35 Million (or about P1.8 Billion) and re-assigned 7,450 workers for the repurposing initiative amid the pandemic. As a way forward, the CPMP pushed for the passage of the Pandemic Protection Act ( SBN 2311) that we filed, as the measure seeks to create a system of stockpiling that would benefit local manufacturers. They also called for the creation of a local facility that can test l ocal PPEs to comply with medical regulations.
The issue is in line with the observation of former health secretary Dr. Manuel Dayrit who said that the Philippine health system is operating in silos with an apparent lack of integration
among national government a g e n c i e s . D r. A l S e ra f i c a concurred and reiterated the need for more communication between all stakeholders to initiate cooperative discussions and enable the health ecosystem to develop local products needed for future pandemics.
On the other hand, the National Institutes of Health of the University of the Philippines (UP-NIH) called for the convening of a Post-Pandemic Commission which will oversee various independent assessments to review how t he l aws and regulations were implemented during t he pandemic, and determine how the country’s system can be further improved and reformed. Among the areas that should be reviewed, the UP- NIH argued, i s the implementation of PhilHealth’s COVID-19 packages, particularly on the prevailing claims filing and payment system to explain
the accumulation of substantial arrears to hospitals.
While the current Congress is already coming to a close, we aim to advocate and to deliberate on all these recommendations with the next administration that the Filipinos have already elected. Clearly, the COVID- 19 pandemic has been the greatest humanitarian crisis we’ve faced in recent history. We need to learn from the real suffering our people have endured and build back a better, more resilient Philippines.
*** Sen. Sonny Angara has been in public service for 15 years—9 years as Representative of the Lone District of Aurora, and 6 as Senator. He has authored and sponsored more than 250 laws. He is currently serving his second term in the Senate.