Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Majority Leader.
If there is one painful lesson the pandemic has taught us it is that even if produce them on an industrial scale, we cannot and we can never have enough doctors. Because even before COVID struck, the Secretary of Health said we were already 114,000 doctors short in what could be described as our society’s preexisting comorbidity.
In training more physicians, there is not only the current shortage to be wiped out, there is also the future increases in population that must be contended with. Even if our population increase will decelerate and stabilize at 1.5 million a year, this would still have to be matched with new entrants to the medical profession.
At the end of the demographic scale, it is our growing greying population, expected to reach 21 million in one generation’s time, or by 2050; and as more Filipinos live longer, they will require more doctors.
One Senate initiative to ramp up the number of physicians is Republic Act No. 11509. This prescription of ours for MD deficiency is popularly known as “Doktor Para Sa Bayan Act.” The driving force behind the law is that government should not leave to market forces or private wealth the education of a very important profession.
Through the “Doktor Para Sa Bayan” Program, it is envisioned that young Filipinos at the bottom of the economic pyramid, blessed with talent but cursed by poverty, would acquire an education only those at the top can afford. At present the program is offered in 16 private schools and 16 state universities with funded slots for 3,600 scholars this year.
The five bills I am introducing, Mr. President, distinguished colleague, through this omnibus sponsorship speech will bring it to 21. When enacted, this will give the program a respectable footprint nationwide, dispersed to regions, in areas in great need of doctors.
Mr. President, I am therefore pleased to introduce five state universities that will establish their own college of medicine. These are the Benguet State University in the Cordilleras, Southern Luzon State University in Quezon Province, University of Eastern Philippines in Northern Samar, Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University in La Union, and Visayas State University in Southern Leyte. These schools are centers of excellence, consistently turn in excellent board examination scores, and are research and innovation hubs.
I urge Mr. President and I ask that we approve these bills with dispatch in order to address the gaping loophole in need that I started my sponsorship speech with.
I submit, Mr. President.