Unilab explains ‘cases’ (3)
BY AMADO P. MACASAET
Hopes for health in 2011?
A.G ROMUALDEZ JR., M.D
‘All is not lost… the government has committed itself to Universal Health Care for all Filipinos. Social development is said to be high on its agenda.’
THE first decade of the 21st century did not go so well for this planet. Fundamentalisms of all sorts appeared on the ascendancy throughout the decade and may have irreparably or at least significantly damaged entire societies, cultures, and huge chunks of our physical environment.
The new century had begun with rays of hope.
In the wake of the Asian financial fiasco of 1997-1999, the global economy seemed to be on the mend. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir defied global free market fundamentalists by leading his country to continued economic success through strong government intervention in the financial sector. The rest of Asia followed with a general return to country-oriented policies that moderated or resisted the shrill advice from financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Here in the Philippines, the election of a populist president gave rise to expectations that social development would soon trump business as the main focus of government policy.
The signing of the Kyoto protocol in 1997 encouraged a belief that environmental relief was imminent for overabused Mother Earth. This was followed by the signing of the Millennium Development Declaration by over 180 heads of state promising equity in health for the world’s poorest peoples in September of the year 2000. Progressives everywhere entertained visions of a socially-conscious world of gender equality, democratic choices, environment-friendly policies, and, most importantly, moderation in individual demands in order to accomodate societal needs.
But as the last century ended, ominous clouds began gathering on the horizon. In the United States, the election of an anti-intellectual conservative as president foretold a roll-back of the social and environmental gains of the Clinton era. This included foreign policy changes that would hamper continued development in poor countries. Conservative fundamentalism in all spheres - from religion to the arts to economics - would be prove to be contagious in both the developed and developing world.
The first year of the decade saw one of humanity’s most catastrophic events - the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. This extreme expression of Muslim fundamentalism marked the beginning of radicalism as a norm in political discourse with the concomitant rejection of civility as a basis for interaction between and among human beings.
Here in the Philippines, the decade began with the illegitimate ouster of Erap Estrada - elected by the overwhelming majority of the Filipino people just two years before. The extent of the damage done to the social and political fabric of the country is yet to be determined and is unlikely to ever be acknowledged by those who participated in or in some way contributed to this disastrous action - especially considering that the most significant conspirators were and still are among the political and social elites comprising the Catholic Church, big business, and the military.
In the health sector, the most obvious harm was in the area of reproductive health. The unholy alliance between Church conservatives and Malacañang not only made an international laughing stock of our family planning program but even more seriously may have triggered what could well be a catastrophic development in the situation of HIV and AIDS in the country. Even then health experts continue to hope that the new administration may still have time to reverse the health impacts of the benighted policies of the last nine years.
But even as the actual impacts on health itself are amenable to technical and administrative remedies, the more deadly effects of almost a decade of indifference to poor Filipinos as individuals, families, and communities will be infinitely more difficult to address. This is because this indifference, institutionalized within most government structures, gives rise to a culture of personal gain in officials and bureaucrats - often but not always manifested in conventional corruption.
Such a phenomenon has occurred in the Department of Health - proud as it is of the survey results showing people’s perception of the agency as "the least corrupt" of national government entities. During the Christmas season, unreported in most media, employees of the central office threatened the new administration with demonstrations if their demands for huge bonuses were not met. The employees (including some high-ranking officials) had come to believe that these payments were theirs by right - even though they were made available through savings of different agencies were effected by holding up on expenditures of funds for crucial health services. This is analogous to the Philhealth practice of tightening up on benefits payments to generate the huge surpluses (aproximately 100 billion pesos) the corporation now enjoys.
Nevertheless, as the title of this piece suggests, all is not lost for the coming decades of the 21st century. In health, the new Philippine Government has committed itself to Universal Health Care for all Filipinos. Social development is said to be high on its agenda.
Internationally, there seems to be a growing reaction to extremism in most spheres. Governments in developed countries are finding that there are limits to what societies can do for its members. As well, business organizations have had to admit the need for state modulation of the profit motive or greed. Moderation - contrary to the expression popularized by the great American conservative extremist, Barry Goldwater - seems to be gaining ground as a virtue in politics, in religion, in social interactions, and culture.
Even in a traditionally fundamentalist organization like the Catholic Church in the Philippines, moderates seem to have found their voices after the Holy Father’s acknowledgment that condoms can be effective in preventing transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus.
Email: alberto.romualdez@ gmail.com