hero too late

February 5th, 12:30am February 4th, 11:59pm TEBArticles

Yellow senatorial candidate Manuel Roxas is trying to latch on to the Universal Health Care (UHC) bill that seeks to widen government health assistance particularly on life-threatening diseases through free medical checkups and other preventive health services.

The UHC bill was principally authored by Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito and is now on President Rody Duterte’s desk awaiting his signature.

“Roxas, in seeking to ride on the UHC law’s approval… only exposed his opportunism and the absence of any effective social program under the failed term of Noynoy.

Under the measure, all Filipinos shall be automatically given coverage by the state-owned Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

Roxas, who is caught napping on the progress of the bill, said “He will work hard to pass the UHC bill into law” when the hard work has all been done, which he should have undertaken when the yellow mob was in power three years ago.

The yellow mob’s main social program was the conditional cash-transfer (CCT) scheme which, unlike now, targeted the poorest families and was mainly packaged for political patronage.

Noynoy’s conditional cash transfer program grew like a malignant disease every year.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) then under yellow priestess Dinky Soliman sought to cover four million families or at least eight million Filipinos receiving straight dole outs from the government since the DSWD then said it did not have enough resources to supervise the program.

PhilHealth coverage was a mere component of the CCT or what was later called the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

The distribution of PhilHealth cards was also then a campaign strategy, which was much criticized as this was seen as a means of campaigning with the use of government resources.

The increase in CCT funding thus not only raises the number of Filipinos dependent on dole outs, but at the same time institutionalizes the use of government resources to boost the chances of administration candidates in the elections.

Soliman’s DSWD then presented the college scholarship program similar to a big noontime show raffle program as it covers only about 40,000 children from the four million families covered by the program.

President Duterte, in contrast, gave an overall solution to the problem by pushing for free education in state colleges and universities.

He signed into law the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.

The doles were given an overhaul under the current administration and removed most of the conditions attached to it since these were believed to have been exploited for political purposes.

Budget Secretary Ben Diokno had espoused targeted cash transfer but with key changes that may include providing parents with a job program to make income of households more sustainable.

Under Rody’s program, the government provided cash grants of P200 a month to the poorest Filipino families which are identified by the DSWD.

The government, however, is giving the doles in one blow of a total of P2,400 for a year.

Another addition under Rody’s version of 4Ps are indigent senior citizens also getting cash doles.

The unconditional cash transfer (UCT) was also used as a social safety net for the poor from the effects of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law.

Throughout the six years of Noynoy, when Roxas was his troubleshooter, the poverty level remained constant at around 25 percent despite the costly 4Ps or cash doles.

Noynoy’s yellow administration used among its catchphrases “Walang corrupt, walang mahirap” or “No corruption, no poverty” that simply exposed the failure of his administration on both counts of reducing poverty and corruption.

Roxas, in seeking to ride on the UHC law’s approval, saying he will exert efforts to have the bill approved, only exposed his opportunism and the absence of any effective social program under the failed term of Noynoy.