RH advocates score P1-B budget cut on contraceptives procurement

Advocates of the Reproductive Health Law scored Friday the cut on the budget intended for the procurement of contraceptives for the government’s family planning program.

In a press statement, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago said she was appalled with the P1 billion budget as it threatens to deprive some seven million women of reproductive health services.

“This abandonment is immoral in a country where some 200 out of 100,000 women who give birth die,” she said.

“It is irreconcilable that Congress, which enacted the RH Law after much hardship in 2012, would three years later render that same law inutile,” she added.

Santiago, a presidential candidate, said if ever she is elected to the highest government post she will work to fully and conscientiously implement the Reproductive Health Law.

“The enemies of reproductive health never sleep. We, too, must not rest in fighting for women’s health,” she said.

Former Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, principal author of RH Law in the House of Representatives, said the Congress, particularly the Senate, reneged on its obligation to adequately fund the speedy and full implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law (R.A. No. 10354).

He said the remaining P157.0 million budget for “Modern and Natural Family Planning Supplies” is inordinately inadequate for the purchase of family planning commodities, which amount may even be lower than the appropriations for said expense when there was no RH Law yet.

“The P1.0-B, which was meanly cut by Senator Vicente Sotto III, is a drop in the bucket in the P3-trillion 2016 national budget and it is a miniscule amount compared to government mega projects which have lesser number of beneficiaries,” said Lagman.

Lagman said that Sotto, after failing to block the passage of the RH Law, is now deliberately stalling its implementation.

Due to the lack of funding in the 2016 General Appropriations Act, the government’s purchases of family planning commodities must be sourced by the DOH from its share in the incremental revenues from sin taxes or from the President’s Contingent Fund, in addition to the donations from foreign agencies, Lagman said.

Senator Loren Legarda, chairman of the Senate finance committee, said the budget cut was used to augment the Department of National Defense budget for air assets.

“We took note that as of June 2015 the DOH status of funds showed that of the 3.27 billion pesos allocation [for the family planning program], only 955 million pesos has been obligated or 29%. For the remaining 6 months, 2.3 billion pesos or 71% has yet to be obligated,” Legarda explained in a message to GMA News Online Thursday night.

She said the unused 2015 budget is still available in 2016 and that agencies such as the Health department may augment their current budget with their savings.

Health Secretary Dr. Janette Garin on Monday said it will be a challenge to implement family planning programs this year because of the budget cut. —KG, GMA News