00:00 Health is wealth. Hence, any slash to items in the DOH's proposed budget is perceived as anti-public or anti-human.
00:08 And today's verbal exchanges in the House budget hearing turned up the heat as arguing parties raised their voices to drive home their points.
00:16 PTV correspondent Mela Lez-Mores has more details on today's DOH budget hearing.
00:23 During today's deliberations of the House Committee on Appropriations on the proposed 2024 budget of the Department of Health,
00:30 DOH Secretary Theodore Herbosa assured that they will further intensify their health services and programs in the country.
00:37 For fiscal year 2024, the DOH is asking for a little over P311 billion in funding next year.
00:46 We want to have better health outcomes with longer life expectancy, stronger health systems that are resilient against pandemics, and access of all Filipinos to all levels of health care.
00:57 Amid the hearing, some lawmakers had a heated exchange when budget cuts for certain DOH initiatives came up.
01:04 This is how it is in the new Philippines, where our health and social services are being cut. Madam Chair, I also echo the sentiment of our colleagues that this should not be the case in the DOH.
01:18 I would find it unfair on the part of the administration being wrongly accused that many programs are being cut because of health issues.
01:27 Because this is a budget briefing. It's not right that we have a drama that we are making all programs of the health insurance companies be cut and making the administration look back where in fact it is not true.
01:40 Meanwhile, as one of the attached agencies of the DOH, issues on PhilHealth were also discussed. The state insurer vowed to pay its millions in debts to hospitals in three months.
01:53 There are so many hospitals that are not accepting indigent patients because PhilHealth owes a lot to them.
02:03 And then, there are also many that are not getting their staff frontliners paid because PhilHealth owes a lot.
02:13 We will completely, hopefully, or very high percentage, within 90 days, the Php 27 billion, you can record this, within 90 days, we will try to pay a very high percentage of the Php 27 billion.
02:34 We are already preparing. We had a meeting, our execom had a meeting yesterday. We are preparing to use the DCPM formula, the Debit Credit Payment Mechanism formula.
02:48 Also, PhilHealth had to explain the salary increases in their agency amid the pandemic.
02:53 Our salary was increased based on an EO, an executive order 150. Even before we were allowed to pattern our salaries on this EO, we actually applied to the GCG and we have the certification process and we went through this and we were approved.
