Manila, Philippines – More and more citizens will benefit from all the laws that President Rodrigo Duterte signed recently. One of these is the National Integrated Cancer Law which is set to help Filipino patients and their families address cancer with ease. Congressman Chiqui Roa-Puno of Antipolo stated how cancer patients and their loved ones endure the illness without any assistance from the government. Republic Act 11215 (Cancer Control Act) allows the government to helps its citizens to face this dreaded disease.
The law is supposed to help patients and their loved ones with finances to combat cancer. Included in this law is the construction of the Philippine Cancer Center which will be supervised by the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital. Establishment of Regional Care Centers can be expected.
She also mentioned that this law is set to revolve around ‘policies and programs for the prevention, detection, correct diagnosis and treatment of cancer’. ‘Palliative care, pain management, and survivorship’ and/or death are also covered by this law. Cancer accounts for the third top cause of death in Filipinos since 2004 and from 2012, there are 189 people among 100,000 who develop the disease. This is according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
To add, there are 11 cases of Cancer every day in the country and according to Puno, there are eight children and seven adults who succumb to cancer each hour.
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There has been a request for proper funding and ‘immediate implementation’ to the Department of Health (DOH), and the Budget Department. The request came from the co-author of the law, Rep. Bernadette Herrera-DY of Bagong Henerasyon party-list group.
The implementation of this law is set to help many Filipino households nationwide. With proper funding and implementation, everyone can expect that combating cancer will now be easier. People in marginalized communities can also breathe easier because they now have the chance to get their illness treated.