Department of Health Manila. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News/File

MANILA — More than increasing the budget to respond to different diseases, Senator Pia Cayetano urged the Department of Health and its attached agencies to think of ways to help Filipinos imbibe a health state of mind and body.

In a hearing on the proposed 2025 budget of the DOH and its attached agencies and corporations Tuesday, the vice-chair of the Senate Committee on Finance said that a lot more can be done not only in terms of budget but even more so in information campaigns and the promotion of well-being.   

“Hindi na pwedeng last minute eh nagse-save lang tayo ng lives. Are we doing enough to help people enter their senior years in a healthy state of mind and body? Hindi ‘yung nadadagdagan lang ang pang-dialysis at maintenance medicines,” she said.

(We can’t just save lives at the last minute. Are we doing enough to help people enter their senior years in a healthy state of mind and body? It’s not enough that we just increase funding for dialysis and maintenance medicines.)

Cayetano targeted social media and other online platforms as ways for the DOH to make issues on health and lifestyle interesting and “sexy” to users, especially the younger populations.

“With every intervention you make on the operating table, do the same effort to really see what kind of promotional campaigns you can do to really change the way we look at ageing and living a healthy life.”

For 2025, Health Secretary Ted Herbosa said they have proposed a budget of P222.8 billion which will help fund programs, projects and activities to support its 8-point action agenda and universal health care.

Of the over P200 billion proposed budget, P1.9 billion has been allocated for health promotion.

“The DOH will expand the implementation of healthy settings programs and health promotion activities in the regions,” Herbosa said.

Cayetano said that while traditional posters are still being used as a means to disseminate information, the reality in the digital age is its high tendency to be ignored due to an individual’s lack of interest or their addiction to social media.

“Go to TikTok, go to what attracts them. It’s not that hard to communicate properly. But you have to be creative and you have to know what resonates with the people that you’re trying to address.”

The senator also questioned how the DOH is able to convince parents to have their children immunized following Herbosa’s claims that the Philippines is no longer among the top countries with the most number of zero-dose children.

“Paano niyo sila kinukumbinsi (How do you convince them)? If it’s a scare tactic, you have to scare them with the truth na pwedeng mamatay ang anak mo. Show them pictures of a mother who lost a child. Tell them that story.”

Tina Marasigan, DOH’s newly installed Director of the Health Promotion Bureau, highlighted their recent efforts to revive school-based immunization throughout the country following a drop in vaccination rates because of the pandemic.

“We have different platforms for the campaign dissemination to battle misinformation about vaccines. We will be maximizing different platforms. We will definitely penetrate the digital platforms – TikTok, Facebook, and even the digital platforms of the LGUs,” she said.

While many platforms are now available for information dissemination, Cayetano said that the quality of information must also be considered to allow it to resonate with different age groups.

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