A lawmaker has proposed that PhilHealth include mental health services in the package of benefits provided by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), citing data from the Department of Health (DOH) that showed 3.6 million Filipinos suffered from mental health issues in 2020 while the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that between 11.3% and 11.6% of the entire Philippine population suffer from mental health issues and the rate is rising at 2% per annum, with the number of sufferers increasing between 7 million to 12.5 million between 1990 and 2019.
Judging by the number of people who believed “change is coming” when they voted for Rodrigo Duterte as president in 2016 and voted for Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio of Team Unity in 2022 based on pledges to restore the Marcos “golden years,” the country, indeed, has to reckon with the malady called “folie a deux” in French, which generally means “shared psychosis.” Change is coming was actually a bloody scam, and the 30,000 slain in the drug war and thousands more on account of Duterte against the people adequately prove that the policy of murder replaced the pledge of growth with equity. Duterte worsened the national debt and Marcos Jr. had to borrow billions monthly to manage the debt as well.
Belief in political promises is indicative of the lack of common sense and it showed when voters trooped to barangay halls waiting for their share of Marcos trillions, either in the form of dollars or gold bullion, and those who admired Marcos Jr. for being the first man to explore the Sun, as propagated by insane trolls and crones. Similarly, those who swallowed Duterte’s guff in 2016, thinking that he would kill all criminals in six months and extirpate the drug trade within the same span shared the same facile imagination of their godfather. They who thought Duterte Sr. to be Santa Claus failed to understand that those who pretend they are poor are the worst grafters known to mankind.
Yet, by the reckoning of both DOH and WHO, the country is bound to be dominated by the insane from 2016 to 2028, and adding more than 24 million mentally disturbed Filipinos to the electorate is a surefire approach to make “political zombies” the fastest-rising demographic the Philippines has ever known, perhaps comparable to the US voters who elected Donald Trump to mismanage the United States and deliver trillions of dollars to plutocrats. Bicol Saro Rep. Brian Yamsuan deserves a “1” for trying to make sense of the mental woes of Filipinos, which will be worsened by the annual filching of PhilHealth money for “unprogrammed appropriations” of UA so beloved of Finance Secretary Ralph Recto.
Yamsuan said he has filed House Bill No. 11086, also known as the Comprehensive Mental Health Benefits Act, to ensure that Filipinos have access to affordable in-patient and outpatient mental health services. Laudable, indeed, but first things first. How many clinical psychologists are there practicing their trade in the country? There must be more Dr. Natalia Dayans who diagnosed Rodrigo Duterte as a malignant narcissist who cannot perform matrimonial duties and is incapable of acting as a husband, forever a prisoner of his biological functions. Expert clinicians may as analyze Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio since her case might be a unique one that can prove that malignant narcissism is a genetic disorder.
“While we laud the efforts of Philhealth, our goal under the bill is to have a unified mental health benefits package that is accessible to all, rather than piecemeal and limited programs that remain vulnerable to changes in administrative priorities and funding limitations,” Yamsuan argued. We all agree with him and hasten to add that all candidates must likewise be examined to determine whether they deserve a place at hospital basements or on Anton Chekov’s Ward No. 6 rather than seats in Congress, the Office of the Vice President (OVP) or Malacanang. This is central to the task of guaranteeing that only rational people can meet the constitutional requirement that only the sane must wield power.
The political carnival sponsored by the Dutertes is another reason why the country deserves to be governed by people who have a sense of balance, a healthy respect for the rule of law, and are devoted to the rules of logic and grammar. It will be a bonus if they also respect civil service rules and are bound by a pledge that doctors abide by: “Primum non nocere” or “primum nil nocere.” At the rate they are burning themselves, this family needs to have been educated on what arson means. Long stints in schools are not a guarantee of learning. Not even burning the midnight oil to secure law degrees is a guarantee that lawyers may grandly practice their profession.
There are other reasons why Yamsuan’s proposal merits some consideration, and we mean the ugly reality that the Philippines has become the hub for online child sexual exploitation and why so many families do not even think that pandering to pedophiles online is a crime but a better way to earn some filthy dollars. Reports from both the DOH and UNICEF betray the failure of the government to prevent the sexual abuse of millions of Filipino children in chat rooms patronized by debauched creatures.
