By Billy Begas
The House of Representatives will revise the proposed Bayanihan 3 and will include funds for genome sequencing expansion in Visayas and Mindanao.
House Committee on Ways and Means chairperson and Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said from the P400 billion Bayanihan 3 the House approved in June, the new version is “more narrow, more focused version than the big package that we proposed earlier.”
“I think our P170 billion tag for this is more realistic and can be funded fully,” Salceda said.
He said the House is also committed to include genome sequencing in its renewed push for the third Bayanihan 3 package.
“It’s a more basic, tighter Bayanihan package that will deal with our most essential needs, including ayuda, medical assistance, cash-for-work, relief, and medical interventions, including genome sequencing. It is also more flexible, so that the Executive can mix and match the allocations as needed,” Salceda said.
Salceda said genome sequencing should have been done much earlier to track the different variants of COVID-19 present in the country.
“And we are committed to funding the expansion of the Philippine Genome Center. We should have done this much earlier, but now that there is an opening with the economic managers, we will seize the opportunity to fund this need,” Salceda added.
The Philippine Genome Center said an additional P100 million is needed to expand its operation in the Visayas and Mindanao.
“The genome center is one of the cheapest but lifesaving measures in the proposed Bayanihan 3, especially as different variants pose different risk levels. Tracking what the variants are and where they are is crucial. If you don’t have enough genome sequencing in Visayas and Mindanao, you are walking blindly in about half of the country,” he pointed out.
Salceda also emphasized the need to realign, declare savings, and seek other funding sources from the 2021 budget to give more ayuda.
The solon admitted that the passage of the measure should be immediate since based on data “September and October could be the worst months. So if we don’t get a Bayanihan 3 passed to deal with this issue, you could have no power to realign any further funds for ayuda, and very few excess resources to directly address the new variants.”
“We need to find a way to pass this bill before then, so we are working with a very tight timeline.”
Salceda revealed that House leaders will be meeting the economic managers on Thursday to further discuss the proposal.
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