MINORITY Floor Leader Senator Ralph Recto lauded Saturday the plans of President Rodrigo Duterte to revive the Botika ng Bayan in every city or municipality in the country.
Earmarking all state gambling income for the purchase of medicines "is the shot in the arm" that will boost anemic government purchases of essential drugs, Recto said.
Recto said about P40 billion in Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) income next year could be added to the Department of Health’s (DOH) allocation for medicines of P16.4 billion, raising its 2017 budget for drugs purchases to almost P57 billion.
"If this happens, then it is as if the DOH has won the lottery. Using gaming income for medicines, however you look at it, is a winning combination," Recto said.
Reportedly, the Botika ng Bayan was first launched in 2005 in order to provide a pharmacy for every community that can supply medicines that are most needed in the area.
According to the DOH, there are 16,350 existing Botika ng Bayan outlets around the country. The program, however, was beset by financing and medicinal restocking issues.
Recto said Pagcor's forecast income for 2016 is P45.4 billion, less P14.7 billion in operating expenses, or a net income before tax of about P30 billion.
To be added to this is the PCSO Charity Fund, representing 30 percent of its gross revenue. This reached P9.6 billion on total sales of P37.4 billion last year.
"So combined, that's easily P40 billion in additional money for health," Recto said. "This will bump up the gross DOH budget to P181.6 billion next year."
In Senate Bill 60, Recto wants the PCSO Charity Fund earmarked for universal healthcare and improvement of Philippine Health Insurance Corporation's benefit packages.
Recto said Pagcor's charter, Presidential Decree 1869 as amended by Republic Act 9847, will have to be revised if its revenues will be rechanneled to health.
"The amendments must be done with utmost consideration of other national programs Pagcor is funding such as sports, culture and arts, and early childhood care," Recto said.
Under the 2017 national budget, the DOH is proposed to receive P90.9 billion plus P50.2 billion for the payment of PhilHealth premiums to cover poor families and senior citizens, and P500 million for calamity aid.
If part of the "gambling dividends" will be distributed to local government-run hospitals, "then it doesn’t matter, because we are merely diversifying the conduits; the beneficiaries—the people—remain the same," Recto said.
Local government-run hospitals number 777 nationwide, ten times more than the 71 DOH-run facilities.
If, as President Duterte had proposed, the PCSO and Pagcor income will be used to stock up Botika ng Barangay outlets, whose network will have to be expanded after many have been shuttered during the Aquino administration, "then the people win also," Recto said.
These botikas and the 3,074 town and city health centers officially known as Rural Health Units (RHUs) should be tapped as frontline dispensaries of needed medicines, Recto said.
Whatever the means, the important thing is the fast procurement and distribution of medicines, the lawmaker stressed.
In 2014, the DOH budget for drugs and medical supplies was P10.2 billion, but a Commission on Audit report revealed that total DOH direct spending for said items only reached P4.3 billion that year.
Recto said tapping PCSO and PAGCOR funds for medicines will narrow the “huge government deficit in cancer drug spending.”
"One in every 10 deaths in the country is due to cancer. Chemotherapy per session is in the six figures, more than the annual income of a poor household. Yet PhilHealth can only extend help to a few," Recto said. (Sunnex)