By IBARRA C. MATEO
PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III continues to support the passage of a bill that will empower Filipino women to make informed choices from various family planning methods, from natural to artificial except abortion, Health Secretary Enrique T. Ona said Tuesday.
Ona said “there is no change” in the presidential stance on family planning. “He has not withdrawn his support for responsible parenthood,” the health secretary said.
The clarification came after Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda earlier said the government has junked a plan to certify a “Reproductive Health” bill as a priority measure to Congress.
“The President continues to support and has not waivered on his support of the principle of (providing) families and couples all the necessary information and support that they would like to have, what would be the size of a family or spacing of children,” said Ona, who faces for the second time the powerful bicameral Commission on Appointments at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.
“At the end of the day, Congress and the Senate will decide on the details of the so-called Responsible Parenthood or Reproductive Health bill,” the health secretary told reporters.
Speaking on the sidelights of a Philippine Health Insurance Corp. event, Ona emphasized the government’s support for all forms of contraceptives that are “legal and not for abortion.”
“We give our mothers, our couples all the necessary information and support so that they can properly space or they can properly decide,” Ona said.
On Monday, President Aquino told reporters “it is really an empowering of the parents themselves and even the unborn for that matter that we are striving to achieve.”
He said, “We believe that it is best left to the discretion and decision of parents.”
On Feb. 7, Lacierda said the reproductive health bill was not among the priority measures sent to Congress. However, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa has said the President is steadfast and serious about crafting a “Reproductive Health” bill.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines and Malacanang have started a dialogue on how to deal with the thorny issue of rapid population growth.
Meanwhile, the PhilHealth is to launch between April or May this year a standardized set of reimbursement for 22 common medical and surgical cases for its members in accredited hospitals.
Dr. Rey B. Aquino, PhilHealth president and chief operating officer, told reporters that among the cases soon to be paid on a “case-rate basis” are dengue, pneumonia, essential hypertension, cerebral infarction/hemorrhage, acute gastro enteritis, typhoid fever, and newborn care package.
Aquino said surgical cases include radiotherapy, dialysis, normal deliveries and caesarian section deliveries, appendectomy, hysterectomy, dilatation and curettage, thyroidectomy, herniorrhapy, and mastectomy.
“Case-rate basis reimbursement is a payment method that reimburses hospitals on a pre-determined, fixed rate for each treated case,” Aquino said.
The planned new system is a departure from the current “fee-for-service” method where providers are paid for each unit of service, which is open to abuse because costs tend to bloat as more services are done to the patients than which are necessary, or more expensive services are substituted for cheaper ones.