The Supreme Court may not be aware of it, but the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued in August by its Second Division against contraceptive drugs and devices could render useless up to P600 million worth of these drugs and devices already purchased by the Department of Health.
This was pointed out by Romeo Dongeto, executive director of the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD), during last Saturday’s Forum@Annabel’s.
The PLCPD is among the group of non-governmental organizations and individuals who petitioned the High Tribunal to lift its TRO.
Dongeto emphasized that without access to contraceptives, the unplanned pregnancy rate of nearly 40 percent will further increase, along with the rates of teenage pregnancy and maternal death arising from childbirth complications.
Another resource person, Elizabeth Angsioco, chairman of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines, said her group also wants the TRO lifted as it violates women’s reproductive health and rights enshrined in various local laws and international treaties.
Both speakers agreed that depriving women access to contraceptives would exacerbate intergenerational poverty. They also rapped the court for disregarding the “equal protection of the mother and the unborn” clause enshrined in the 1987 Philippine Constitution.
Building spree requires reforms
How should the Duterte administration proceed with its recently announced comprehensive infrastructure-development program costing P8 trillion under what it calls the “build, build, build” framework?
If we’re to heed the suggestion of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), with due diligence and caution.
According to the think tank, the Duterte administration cannot simply “build, build, build” infrastructure without undertaking reforms that would enable both the national and local governments to spend funds more efficiently.
“Despite meaning well, the government will need to undertake other administrative reforms if it is to find success in ramping up its efforts,” the group said.
While conceding that the government needs to fill a huge infrastructure gap, the EIU said the challenge lies more in “reforming flaws in disbursing agencies” that haunted the previous government’s similar program.
Local governments, it said, tend to have “weak procurement capacity and arduous permitting procedures.”
How about the national government? The previous administration early on said it would launch no less than 10 big-ticket infrastructure projects under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Program between 2010 and 2016 to spur economic growth.
That pledge yielded just one completed project in six years: the 4-kilometer Daang Hari road linking Las Piñas with Cavite.
What happened to the nine others? They did not take off at all because of government underspending and a complicated public bidding process that allowed losing bidders to seek a temporary restraining order from the courts to suspend the award of projects to the winner, for one reason or another.
The situation will improve under the Duterte administration, Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno assures the public, as he is aware of the underspending problem and that reforms have been started, particularly in project monitoring, to that budget allotments would be spent for projects that benefit the people.
The infrastructure-development program of the Duterte administration is an ambitious one, with road, rail, port and even “green” cities components that will no doubt spur economic growth and social progress if properly implemented.
Homeless three years after Yolanda
President Duterte was really angry as he unleashed yet another stream of expletives after being told that many of the survivors of super Supertyphoon Yolanda in 2013 have yet to be given adequate shelter.
“I am not satisfied. As a matter of fact, it’s bullshit,” he blurted out during the recent commemoration of the third anniversary of Yolanda in Tacloban City. “I’ll be back here in December. I want all of them transferred to bunk houses by December.”
That’s a very clear marching order to Vice President and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) Chairman Leni Robredo and the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Diño, but will they be able to build enough shelters in a month’s time?
Robredo estimates that around 205,000 houses need to be built for the Yolanda survivors, who now live in makeshift houses without power and water. After three years and the flood of donations from foreign sources, the government has only built some 25,000 bunkhouses.
It would, therefore, be really impossible for Robredo to rush the construction of 180,000 housing units, or even just 50,000, by December. While she has vowed to fast-track the building of permanent shelters in affected areas, we seriously doubt that Robredo and the HUDCC can meet Duterte’s deadline.
One thing bothers us. We know that after Yolanda struck, the government received billions of pesos in humanitarian aid from both foreign and local sources to help victims recover from the tragedy. So why is the rehabilitation and recovery effort taking a very long time? Where did the money go?
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.