Solidarity and compassion, not politics, needed to fight COVID-19 – Go

Sen. Christopher Go (second from left) led the launching on Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, of the 85th Malasakit Center at the National Center for Mental Health in Mandaluyong. (Photo from his office)

MANILA, Philippines — Set aside politics and instead work in solidarity and with compassion for those made more vulnerable by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go stressed this message to Filipinos in his speech at the launching last Friday of the 85th Malasakit Center at the National Center for Mental Health in Mandaluyong.

“I know you’re all having a hard time because of this pandemic. We in government are also having a hard time. But let’s just help each other in this. Who else would help each other but we Filipinos?” Go said, according to a statement issued on Sunday.

He added that President Rodrigo Duterte, in one of their nightly conversations, had asked him to just ignore whatever administration critics would say.

“Bong, just let them be. Let’s just do this. What’s important is that we get through this,” Go recalled the President telling him.

“We have no other wish but to serve so that we can get through this pandemic,” Go added.

The senator, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health and Demography, then thanked all those who helped put up the 85th Malasakit Center — among them, Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, Social Welfare Undersecretary Aimee Torrefranca-Neri, Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission Commissioner Greco B. Belgica, Mandaluyong Mayor Carmelita A. Abalos and Rep. Neptali Gonzales II.

The new center is the first in Mandaluyong and the 16th in Metro Manila.

Malasakit Centers are one-stop shops that make it easier for poor Filipinos to seek medical and financial assistance by putting together in one place personnel from various government agencies — the Department of Health, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

The centers were institutionalized under Malasakit Centers Act of 2019, which was authored and sponsored by Go and signed by President Duterte last December 2019. The law mandates the establishment of the centers in every in the Philippine General Hospital in Manila and in all hospitals run by the Department of Health.

Other public hospitals can also establish their own centers provided they meet the standard set of criteria and can guarantee the availability of funds for their operation.

Meanwhile, Go reassured the hospital patients that they would receive the maximum assistance the government could offer.

“If you have a balance [in medical bills], the Malasakit Center will pay for it because its target is to achieve zero balance as much as possible,” he said.

He added that the Department of Social Welfare and Development had also committed to giving additional assistance to select patients on completing their assessment.

Go also vowed to help DOH and Gonzales in their push for the establishment of a new hospital in Mandaluyong.

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