Opposition of Bills

OPPOSITION TO HOUSE BILL 6069 AND SENATE BILL NO. 3130

We, the Cotabato Regional and Medical Center Employees , strongly oppose the passage of House Bill No. 6069 and Senate Bill 3130  introduced by Congressman Anthony Rolando T. Golez, Jr. and Senator Franklin Drilon, respectively.

House Bill No. 6069 pertains to, “AN ACT CONVERTING GOVERNMENT HOSPITALS INTO NATIONAL GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL CORPORATIONS PROVIDING FUNDS THEREFOR, and AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES”; while Senate Bill 3130 pertains to, “AN ACT INSTITUTING A CORPORATE RESTRUCTURING PROGRAM FOR NATIONAL GOVERNMENT HOSPITALS, PROVIDING FUNDS THEREFOR, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES”

That the said Bills include among others the corporatization of the 26 retained DOH Hospitals and Medical Centers including the Cotabato Regional and Medical Center;

That the Cotabato Regional and Medical Center is the only tertiary hospital serving the constituents of two administrative regions of  Region XII and Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the City of Cotabato;

That, Region XII and ARMM are regions where majority of the people are marginalized, and displaced by the continuing armed conflict. The maternal and infant morbidity and mortality are its highest due to poverty and inadequate health care delivery. Cotabato Regional and Medical Center is the only tertiary hospital that serves the poor;

That, corporatization or privatization of Cotabato Regional and Medical Center, would mean that the government discharge its responsibility of providing health to all and deprive the people of its constitutional right to health care;
That, depriving the people of Region XII and ARMM of tertiary health services because of high cost is a neglect of the government and would worsen the poor condition of the people;
That, corporatization of the hospital is a step towards privatization or even a form of privatization. Privatization would mean that the ownership in control public functions is transferred in a whole or in part to a private operator. The primary objective is profit for the owner, among other things and this necessitates an avoidance of customers who cannot pay to maximize between revenues and costs;

That, engaging in so called Public Private Partnership as the main engine for growth and development denies the poor of their rights to health and financial freedom. It further deprives the employees of the government of their security of tenure and a threat to their employment;
That, House Bill 6069 and Senate Bill 3130 slowly put patients to coma and killing through overt euthanasia the dedicated and committed hospital employees;

Therefore, we strongly oppose the passage of these bills and ask the government to fulfill its promise and obligation to provide health for all.

Heroes of The Philippine Agriculture

Poor and landless

      In Tarlac province, about 100 kms north of Manila, Hacienda Luisita was once touted as a showcase of the land reform program. Here, however, CARP has failed to win the hearts and minds of farmers: In recent random interviews, they told Bulatlat.com that their lives have been ruined further because of CARP. Luisita is owned by the family of former President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino.

      One of the workers, Francisco Nakpil, is an agricultural worker in the sugarcane plantation of Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) for 45 years. When the stock distribution options (SDO) scheme under CARP was introduced in the hacienda in 1989, Nakpil became one of the 7,000 workers who became instant “stockholders” of the agro-corporation. Within 30 years under this scheme, hacienda owners were to transfer 32 percent of the total stocks of the company to the farm workers.

     For the past 15 years, Nakpil received an average daily wage of P9, a sack of rice every month, a P4,000 educational loan every June and an average annual three percent profit share of around P2,000. Based on reasonable market price equivalents of the material benefits, Nakpil was in effect getting an average yearly income of P17,760 - or P48.66 daily. For being an HLI stockholder, he also got a 240 square meter home lot.

      Yet, has Nakpil become richer through the land reform program?

      Today at 62, Nakpil says he has only a home lot souvenir from the HLI, a P20,000 separation pay, and some P2,600 monthly pension from the Social Security System. His retirement ended his profit share from the HLI. He does not have land to pass on to his children. His monthly pension gave him just P86 a day that can hardly meet his family’s needs.

And so his answer in Filipino: “I am poor, past and present.”

Problema Sa Agrikultura ng Bansa

The Philippines exports its agricultural products around the world, including the United States, Japan, Europe, and ASEAN countries (members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations). Major export products are coconut oil and other coconut products, fruits and vegetables, bananas, and prawns (a type of shrimp). Other exports include the Cavendish banana, Cayenne pineapple, tuna, seaweed, and carrageenan. The value of coconut-product exports amounted to US$989 million in 1995 but declined to US$569 million by 2000. Imported agricultural products include unmilled wheat and meslin, oilcake and other soybean residues, malt and malt flour, urea, flour, meals and pellets of fish, soybeans and whey.
One of the most pressing concerns of the agricultural sector is the rampant conversion of agricultural land into golf courses, residential subdivisions, and industrial parks or resorts. In 1993 the nation was losing irrigated rice lands at a rate of 2,300 hectares per year. Small land-holders find it more profitable to sell their land to developers in exchange for cash, especially since they lack capital for seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and wages for hiring workers to plant and harvest the crops. Another concern is farmers' continued reliance on chemical-based fertilizers or pesticides that have destroyed soil productivity over time. In recent years however, farmers have been slowly turning to organic fertilizer, or at least to a combination of chemical and organic inputs.
Environmental damage is another major concern. Coral-reef destruction, pollution of coastal and marine resources, mangrove forest destruction, and siltation (the clogging of bodies of water with silt deposits) are significant problems.
The agriculture sector has not received adequate resources for the funding of critical programs or projects, such as the construction of efficient irrigation systems. According to the World Bank, the share of irrigated crop land in the Philippines averaged only about 19.5 percent in the mid-1990s, compared with 37.5 percent for China, 24.8 percent for Thailand, and 30.8 percent for Vietnam. In the late 1990s, the government attempted to modernize the agriculture sector with the Medium Term Agricultural Development Plan and the Agricultural Fisheries Modernization Act.

Read more: http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Asia-and-the-Pacific/Philippines-AGRICULTURE.html#ixzz2Hz2NVdd7