International Human Rights Day Statement
10 December 2014
Asserting the Filipino People’s Right to Health
After four years the Philippine healthcare system under the Aquino administration remains bleak if not getting worse. Health care inequalities, failed public health financing, the continuous exodus of health care professionals, weak health care response to disaster and the lack of immediate health care provisions to victims of human rights violations characterized the ill-state of the Philippine Public Health System.
Inequities in Health Services
While the Philippine government claimed to gain a steady economic growth since President Aquino assumed office in 2010, there is a minimal improvement in poverty incidence as inequities in the access of health care services remain. 2012 Study of the Universal Health Care Study Group shows that 60% of Filipinos who die, die without being attended by health professionals. Even in birth mortality, among the rich, only 10 infants out of 1,000 live births die but among the poor, it is more than 90 infants.