As presumptive President Rodrigo Duterte promised during the three-month campaign period, he plans to promote rural development and expand health insurance coverage for poor Filipinos.
This has been confirmed by Carlos Dominguez III, a member of Duterte’s transition team, in a news conference held last week.
“Two-thirds of people living below the poverty line live in the rural areas. If you want to bring them above the poverty line, we are going to cut poverty, you have to know where they are,” Dominguez said.
“With regards to health, we would like to expand PhilHealth coverage. That is a key program for us. This will be focused again on the two-thirds of the people who live in rural areas or below the poverty line,” added Dominguez.
Created in 1995, PhilHealth (Philippine Health Insurance Corporation) was “established to provide health insurance coverage and ensure affordable, acceptable, available, and accessible health care services for all citizens of the Philippines,” said their official website.
Furthermore, Dominguez said that the incoming administration is also targeting to grow agricultural productivity by establishing more farm-to-market roads.
He said “We have to make sure that agricultural productivity is increased, that their access to markets is increased, that you start promoting other rural development projects in the area.”
As Duterte tries to come up with names to fill certain positions in his cabinet, he has previously hinted that Dominguez would probably serve in the Department of Finance.
Dominguez also said that Duterte plans to conduct a thorough background check to ensure that those who will be appointed under his administration will not have any pending court cases whatsoever. Furthermore, the presumptive President is open about the idea of picking a “devil’s advocate” to join as well.
“I believe that one of the suggestions was the creation of something like a devil’s advocate, somebody who will challenge the group, that will challenge every name that was given to us… that none of the 6,000 positions that need to be filled will (not) have any cases,” remarked Dominguez.
via : gmanetwork