Published in its print edition on January 4 – 10, 2025
The poor and the underprivileged need help and the “ayuda” or assistance given them are needed and vital for their lifeline.
However, the culture of mendicancy makes most, if not only some, of these people as dependent to the assistance and would likely not to look for a regular work.
Politicians continue to have a firm stranglehold to these gullible people because of the culture, which is favorable to the corrupt officials.
Instead of putting more funds on longtime ayudas or assistance, the government should instead focus on funding a pro-people’s welfare law such as the Universal Health Care Act, which has been in effect for five years now, but not fully implemented.
For the pro-people’s welfare, the government should allocate funding for the free hospitalization and medicines for all Filipinos, as the Act has mandated. Furthermore, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) should look for funding sources to implement the law’s provisions.
The law is clear that every Filipino shall be enrolled in the National Health Insurance Program and that its immediate access is given “for preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative care for medical, dental, mental and emergency services, delivered as population-based or individual-based health services.”
Unwittingly, the legislators pulled out the plug for a lifeline for funding the law as the P74-billion Philhealth subsidy was scrapped and instead reappropriated to ayudas or assistance by local officials.
True, the culture of mendicancy works for politicians who want to stay in power—by all means.#
