An urgent appeal to use the Cancer Assistance Fund

The World Health Organization reported that there were around 92,000 Filipinos who died of cancer in 2020. This translates into an alarming 252 deaths every day.

Reducing deaths due to cancer and lessening cancer patients’ out-of-pocket expenditures were the main objectives of the National Integrated Cancer Control Act passed in 2019. Funds allocated for the implementation of this law should be used appropriately and treated with a sense of urgency. Otherwise, the law will tend to be useless, as more lives will be put at risk. There will be more deaths from preventable and treatable cancers.

The General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2022 set aside Php529 million a Cancer Assistance Fund (CAF). The amount was allocated to provide more access to cancer diagnostics, care and treatment, most especially for those indigent and financially incapacitated.

As early as May 2022, the National Integrated Cancer Control Council, which is mandated as the policy-making, planning and coordinating body on cancer control attached with the Department of Health (DOH), aired its urgent appeal to the previous Administration to immediately direct the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and DOH to expedite the issuance of their Joint Memorandum Circular creating and operationalizing the CAF, as specifically stipulated in this year’s GAA. However, the said circular was not released until the transition to the new administration. It was only recently that the OIC-Secretary of Health, Dr. Maria Rosario Vergeire, announced that the said circular was already signed and operational.

Still, cancer stakeholders are left with so many questions. How can they avail themselves of the fund? No official document on the CAF has been released.

It is already September. We only have three and a half months remaining in 2022. And yet, the funding intended for CAF remains unused.

We urge the government to take swift action for the immediate utilization of the CAF. The government must also ensure continued funding in the coming years. This unjust and unnecessary delay in the utilization of the CAF is a blatant disservice to many Filipinos – specifically, cancer patients and their families — who deserve better support from the government.