By Teodoro B. Padilla
In March 2020, the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) was designated by the Department of Health (DoH) as one of the three coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) referral centers in Metro Manila. As a result, a substantial proportion of the hospital’s logistics and manpower was allocated to caring for COVID-19 patients.
The PGH Cancer Institute, among other non-emergency outpatient specialty services of the hospital, ceased operations for one week to ensure the safety of cancer patients who are mostly immunocompromised and therefore have a higher risk of getting infected with the novel coronavirus. (“Treatment of cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines,”
PASAY CITY, Feb. 8 Once enacted into law by President Duterte, the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) bill will result in a more affordable cancer treatment as the measure will exempt cancer prevention medication from the Value Added Tax, Senator Joel Villanueva said.
Villanueva, chair of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resource Development, said he was eagerly looking forward to the enactment of the CREATE bill which he said could serve as a milestone not only in the country s fight against the pandemic, but also in the campaign to prevent cancer and other diseases in the country.
(Pixabay / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
Villanueva said that under the CREATE bill, cancer medications will be exempted from value-added tax (VAT).
“Not only will the proposed CREATE law help our economy bounce back from the raging effects of the pandemic, it will also greatly reduce the cost of cancer medication that has been killing hundreds of Filipinos every day who cannot afford the cost of cancer treatment,” he said in a statement on February 7.
The Senate and the House of Representatives last week ratified the final version of the CREATE bill, which seeks to lower corporate income tax (CIT) and amend the country’s tax incentives system to attract more foreign investments and create job opportunities in the country.
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Senator Sonny Angara
The reconciled 2021 budget which Congress has approved is currently awaiting the President’s signature. We have worked diligently to ensure that through this budget, assistance is extended in a timely manner to those who have been affected by calamity, poverty, disease, and homelessness in the past year. We have also funded laws and bills that will have far-reaching impacts on the lives of Filipinos.
Some of these measures directly address matters pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare, and people’s welfare. One is the Doktor Para Sa Bayan Act, which is awaiting the President’ signature. This measure seeks to produce more healthcare workers around the country through medical scholarships given to qualified and deserving students. It also requires that each region will have at least one state-operated medical school. To this end, the 2021 budget allocates P1.033 billion as a seed fund for the development of medical schools in 12 state universities