MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte has signed the landmark Mental Health Law, which aims to provide affordable and accessible mental health services for Filipinos.
Republic Act 11036, authored by Sen. Risa Hontiveros, would secure the rights and welfare of persons with mental health needs and mental health professionals.
The law also provides mental health services down to the barangays; integrate psychiatric, psychosocial and neurologic services in regional, provincial and tertiary hospitals; improve mental health care facilities; and promote mental health education in schools and workplaces.
“Help is finally here,” Hontiveros said in a statement released Thursday. “The Mental Health Law cements the government’s commitment to a more holistic approach to health care: without sound mental health there can be no genuine physical health.”
She said the signing of the law will “set the path for the government’s policy in integrating mental health care in the country’s public health care system.”
“No longer shall Filipinos suffer silently in the dark. The people’s mental health issues will now cease to be seen as an invisible sickness spoken only in whispers,” she added.
Hontiveros’ coauthors were Senate President Vicente Sotto III, Loren Legarda, Antonio Trillanes IV, Paolo Begino Aquino IV, Juan Edgardo Angara, and Joel Villanueva.
“This is the victory of the different advocates who helped in crafting the bill and ensured its passage from the time we filed it last October 2016,” Hontiveros said.
“I am glad and honored to be a messenger of hope for the numerous mental health professionals, persons with mental health concerns, youth and students who lent their voice for this landmark legislation to see the light of day,” she added./PN
