Quezon City — Health Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia (HCWH-SEA), a member of the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI) echoes earlier call by Social Watch to lawmakers to enact the 2010 budget before they go on holiday break.
A reenacted budget for an election year is "not only bad and dangerous but also anomalous."
Executive Director
HCWH-SEA
According to Merci Ferrer, HCWH-SEA Executive Director, a reenacted budget for an election year is "not only bad and dangerous but also anomalous."
"We call on the lawmakers not to loose sight that they have to urgently enact the 2010 budget. This is their duty and perhaps one of the best Christmas gifts they could offer to the Filipinos," said Ferrer.
HCWH-SEA and ABI-health cluster are also urging the lawmakers to give serious consideration to ABI's proposed 2010 alternative budget for education, health, agriculture and environment and the unreleased budget.
"Once and for all, let us make this right. The past years, several items in the health budget alone are still unreleased," said Ferrer referring to the 2008 "impounded" health budget of P100 M for the purchase of autoclave machines for infectious medical waste treatment, P400 M for TB program and P1.82 B for family health and the still unreleased P13.2 M for non-mercury thermometers from the 2009 budget.
"We do hope that the government will not get away perpetually impounding these very important public health allocations. If they do, then we can only expect the worst with a reenacted 2010 budget."
ABI is a consortium of 60 non-government organizations that has been actively engaging the government in the budget process for the past six years.