SANGGUNIAN UPDATES

​PCSO district and regional offices in Baguio

THE Baguio City Council approved last Monday a resolution introduced by Councilor Peter Fianza requesting the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office or PCSO to establish its district and regional offices in Baguio to serve indigent patients in the Cordillera Administrative Region.

The approval takes note of the recent action of the PCSO in decentralizing its processing and approval of fund assistance applications to indigent patients from its office located at the Lung Center in Quezon City to district and regional offices in various regions in the country. The decentralization is aimed at bringing closer the humanitarian and charity services of the PCSO to the thousands of indigent patients in need of medical assistance.

In moving for the approval, Fianza said that while the decentralization scheme may indeed shorten the distance between indigent patients and the services offered by the PCSO, this can be effectively realized only if there are district or regional offices already established in the various regions in the country. Unfortunately, he discovered that the CAR, as well as the autonomous region of Mindanao, do not yet have PCSO district or regional offices within their respective jurisdictions.

This disparity according to Fianza is quite evident on the PCSO website which lists all their district and regional offices in each of the regions of the country, with some of the regions even having four PCSO district offices, and yet the CAR and the ARMM do not have a single district or regional office of the PCSO.

Fianza further pointed out that due to the absence of PCSO district or regional offices in the CAR, indigent patients here have to line up at the nearest neighboring district or regional office in Regions 1 and 2 thereby competing for attention and support with the constituents of the said regions.

Also, it is believed that the quota system being implemented for each district or region for the number of indigent patients processed and approved per week (4 per week) is insufficient as compared to the old centralized system where all of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center dialysis patients were allowed to avail of the support for three to four times a year.

The resolution also cited that in January of this year, Mayor Mauricio Domogan wrote PCSO Chairperson Margarita Juico on the need to address the negative effects of the decentralization scheme for patients coming from Baguio and the Cordillera and the necessity of establishing at least a district or regional office for CAR.

Finally, with the passage of the said measure, the city council is also hopeful that the regional government of the Autonomous Region of Mindanao will appreciate the action taken by the local body on the matter and resolve to adopt the same resolution, a copy of which is being readied for transmittal to the said regional government.*