A hundred days into President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s administration, a permanent Department of Health (DOH) secretary has yet to be appointed.
Since July 2022, the appointed DOH officer-in-charge (OIC) is Dr. Rosario Vergeire, who is currently the DOH undersecretary for public health services. She assumed the position of OIC “until 31 July 2022, or until a replacement has been appointed or designated, whichever comes first,” according to Marcos’s Memorandum Circular 1.
Vergeire, however, assured the public that despite the absence of a department head, DOH will function as is.
"Whatever position I may have, 100 percent naman po ang ibinibigay. It doesn't affect our services, and the delivery and the decision-making halos pareho naman. Wala po tayong disruption," she said during a House Appropriations Committee hearing, on September 14.
No statement has been released yet regarding the chief executive’s possible nominees to take on the post of the health secretary. “Wala po kaming impormasyon doon sa kung ilan ang pinagpipilian,” then Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles announced in a press briefing in July 14.
Marcos explained in an ALLTV interview that the reason why he has not designated anyone for the post is that the Philippines is not only confronted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the rising cases of HIV, dengue, and tuberculosis.
“We have to remember that the DOH is not about COVID alone. It’s about public health in general, so that’s another side of it. And it’s as important as COVID is,” Marcos said.
The roles of a health secretary, as per DOH internal guidelines, include the facilitation of the development, management and monitoring of the country’s local health system by issuing policies and implementing interventions.
In 2008, Dr. Francisco Duque III’s first term as the health secretary, he spearheaded the 2008 law which made prescription drugs cheaper. While Dr. Enrique Ona, the DOH secretary under Aquino III, was devoted to push for two landmark health reforms: the Sin Tax Law and the Reproductive Health Law. However, with the absence of a full-time department head, steering through Congress similar landmark proposals could be difficult, if not impossible.
And while there is no appointed DOH secretary, the challenges to the health sector continue to mount.
The DOH revealed that the Philippines faces a shortage of around 194,000 healthcare workers. Of the total shortage, 106,541 of those are nurses.
Vergeire also reported in a statement that there is an internal migration of workers from the private to the public branch because of income disparity. An entry-level nurse could earn around P30,000 monthly, while a private nurse, on average, earns around P5,000 to P12,000 each month.
To resolve the nurses’ exodus, the DOH is pushing for two bills: one that would institutionalize payment of hazard pay, educational assistance, and additional compensation to all healthcare workers, and a bill to standardize the salaries of public and private healthcare workers.
But amid ambitious plans, next year, the Department of Budget and Management proposed to slash funding for major public hospitals such as Philippine Heart Center and the National Kidney and Transplant Institute. The UP Philippine General Hospital, too, faces a P893-million budget cut.
The budget cuts will mostly affect healthcare workers, according to the Vergeire last September 7, adding that the agency, in fact, needs a higher budget to fund COVID-19 benefits, such as One COVID-19 Allowance and salary increase of healthcare professionals.
Backtracking to Marcos’ State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July 25, he vowed to spotlight COVID-19 and other national health issues in his administration. One of his SONA promises was to lift the mandated lockdowns.
“Sa ating sitwasyong pangkalusugan, nariyan pa rin ang banta ng COVID-19 lalo’t may mga nadidiskubreng bagong variant, pero hindi na natin kakayanin ang isa pang lockdown,” he said. “Wala na tayong gagawing lockdown.”
He also discussed establishing other medical facilities outside the National Capital Region to attend to the different health concerns of Filipinos in far-flung areas, and the need to work on a streamlined provision of cost-effective medicine across the country by “opening up the market to lower the price of drugs.”
But Marcos’s plans will remain as wishes because of the lack of direction from an appointed department head. And while the president’s visions for the medical sector remain far from reach, it is, ultimately, the Filipino people who will suffer the most. •
