Senator Francis Escudero on Thursday pressed the need to establish additional medical schools amid the shortage of professional physicians in the country.

Highlighting the country's experiences at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Escudero urged his fellow lawmakers to legislate a measure allowing the creation of more schools that offer medical courses in different parts of the country in order to produce more medical doctors in line, with the purpose of Republic Act 11509 or the Doktor Para sa Bayan Act.

"If there is one painful lesson that the pandemic has taught us, it is the fact that even if we produce them on an industrial scale, we cannot have enough doctors," he said.

Escudero, who chairs the Senate Committee on Higher Education, lamented that even before the health crisis hit the country, "the Secretary of Health said we were already 114,000 short of doctors, in what could be described as our society's pre-existing comorbidity."

He then cited at least five universities that can establish their own college of medicine namely: Benguet State University in the Cordilleras, which is the subject of Committee Report 109; Southern Luzon State University in Quezon Province, under Committee Report 110; University of Eastern Philippines in Northern Samar, under Committee Report 111; Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University in La Union, under Committee Report 112; and Visayas State University in Southern Leyte, under Committee Report 116.