By PRINCE GOLEZ and ADRIAN STEWART CO
MANILA – Sen. Loren Legarda assured the passage of the proposed P1.16-billion supplemental for the medical needs of children who were administered with the controversial anti-dengue vaccine Dengvaxia.
Leagrda made the remark after the Senate adjourned its session past midnight on Wednesday.
“I was ready to sponsor the Committee Report, and had repeatedly asked my colleagues to allow me to take up the measure, particularly during the short breaks while we were taking up the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL). But I was told that BBL must be finished first. I respected that and waited,” said the chairwoman of the Senate committee on finance.
Her panel filed Committee Report No. 395, after the House of Representatives transmitted House Bill No. 7449, covering the supplemental budget for fiscal year 2018 for this specific purpose.
The committee report took into consideration the bills filed by Senators Legarda, Richard Gordon, and Joseph Victor Ejercito on the same matter.
At the Senate plenary, Legarda said the finance committee is “ready” to deliberate on the measure.
“We conducted a hearing. We received the appropriations measure from the Lower House. There was a certification that it’s urgent from Malacañang,” she said. “The Bureau of Treasury has certified the funds are available. I leave it to the Body to decide – do we want to allocate it now or to make them wait for another two months for the medical assistance to be given?”
But Legarda added that the session lacked quorum when the proposed Senate Resolution No. 738, expressing the sense of the Senate on the matter of the removal of a Chief Justice was being debated on after the BBL was passed.
“It was most unfortunate that because there was no more quorum, we had to adjourn,” Legarda said.
She guaranteed that the measure we will be taken up as the first agenda when Congress resumes after the State of the Nation Address in July.
“I assure the public, all the victims and their families that this bill will be immediately approved to provide much-needed aid to the affected families and ensure that the medical assistance program is not yet too late in terms of making sure that we keep our children safe and healthy,” Legarda said.
Voting 231-0, the House approved on Tuesday night House Bill 7449, which seeks to appropriate P1,161,710,000 as supplemental appropriation to the national budget.
Under the approved bill, the amount will come from the partial refund from unused vials returned by French pharmaceutical company and Dengvaxia manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur to the government through its local distributor Zuellig Pharma.
Eighty one percent – or P945 million – of the supplemental budget will be allocated for medical assistance program, or the health assistance fund for Dengvaxia vaccinees, including patients admitted in hospitals and outpatients.
Meanwhile, 13 percent – or around P148 million – of the budget will be placed for public health management, P78 million for assessment and monitoring Dengvaxia vaccines, P70 million for supplies and medicines, and P67 million will be for human resource for health deployment.
Around P25 million will be allocated for supplies and medicine that the nurses will use in monitoring the patients, while P45 million will be used to produce Dengvaxia assistance card for the patients./PN
