AGENDA SETTING. Vice Gov. Lilia G. Pineda presides over a meeting of the sangguniang at her office Monday to set Pampanga’s legislative agenda for 2020. Photo by Bong Lacson
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The seemingly never-ending queues of the infirm, the ailing, the sick – in all degrees of seriousness – at the Capitol on Mondays have remained a constant as much in the public life as in the private person of Lilia G. Pineda, from her three terms as governor, through this the first year of her vice-governorship.
No other Pampanga governor – aye, all of them combined – has initiated, implemented, and impacted as much health programs, projects, and services to the Capampangan as much as Pineda, indeed meriting her the endearing Nanay to her people.
Her efforts at providing her constituents universal care – in the true meaning of the word – with her engagements with PhilHealth and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office have earned accolades from the national government. Her organization and deployment of health workers and her eponymous Nanay volunteers at the barangay level have been hailed as “best practices” for emulation, moreso, for replication in other local government units.
The improvement of the province’s 11 district hospitals and the provincial Diosdado Macapagal Memorial Hospital in facilities, equipment, staff and services has likewise been hailed a template for other LGUs.
Still, Pineda herself would be the last to call her health program a “success.”
“All our efforts seem to be always falling short, notwithstanding the amount of resources, both manpower and material, we infused in all these health initiatives and interventions,” she said, her mind not far from the long lines to the medical assistance office at the ground of the Capitol and to that to her office on the second floor.
Pineda said it was high time that the “curative phase” of health programs be “strongly complemented by the preventive aspect.”
“The quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, among others, need be of the safest standards,” she said. “We all know how disease-causing germs thrive in a dirty environment.”
In a short talk with Punto! at her office on Monday, Pineda adumbrated a series of legislative measures she said shall be enacted to ascertain the health security of the Capampangan constituency this 2020.
Potable water
Local water districts (LWDs) and their joint venture partners shall be made to account of their strict adherence to, “not simple compliance with,” the set standard parameters for drinking water quality.
“Hindi puede yung malinaw naman, kaya puede nang inumin. Dapat, talagang puro sa kalinisan,” she said.
Reports of periodic safety water standard tests conducted by the LWDs shall be asked to be provided to the local government units, “not only for their information but moreso for their immediate action in cases of problems.”
Food security
It is not enough that there is enough food supply, it is imperative that the food is safe, especially with the penchant of the Capampangan to make even the blandest of dishes “not only edible but even delectable.”
“Safety starts where the food is grown,” Pineda said. “Our experiences with the H5N6 avian influenza in 2017 and the African swine flu last year are lessons here.”
Poultry and piggery farms, as well as abattoirs, need to be subjected to stringent health and environmental standards to “guarantee food safety.”
“The cleanliness of these food farms will also greatly minimize, if not totally eradicate, air pollution,” Pineda added.
Waste management
While Pineda took exception to the validity of the reasons of Environment Undersecretary for Solid Waste Management and LGU Concerns Benny Antiporda in closing four “open dumpsites” in the province last year, she has nonetheless advanced “more stringent” measures to the local implementation of the garbage law.
“There have been a lot of concern over the disposal of hospital wastes, which is really called for owing to their impact to the health of the people. As much concern though should be given to funeral parlor wastes,” she said.
Close monitoring by concerned departments of LGUs on both provincial and municipal/city levels of the disposal of hospital and funeral wastes will be mandated through local legislation to assure they undergo proper procedures and prevent their posing danger to the people’s health.
Road safety
“I mourn the loss of lives, especially the young and promising ones, in that New Year road tragedy,” lamented Pineda of the mishap in her native Lubao that claimed seven lives.
While conceding that transport regulations are primarily “within the ambit of national agencies” like the Land Transportation Office and the Land Transportation and Franchise Regulatory Board, the LGUs “will be shirking their responsibility to ensure the safety of their constituencies if we just these accept accidents as inevitable.”
“We can – through resolutions, for one – ask the LTFRB to strictly implement the banning of dangerously dilapidated public transports, the LTO for the revival of the drug-test and its strict implementation as requirement for the issuance of driver’s license,” she said. “Also, the deputization of local traffic enforcers and their deployment in major routes.”
In cases of indigents being fatalities in road accidents, Pineda said she would be calling a meeting with funeral parlor proprietors to “strongly request an automatic 15 to 20 percent off the cost of their services.”
“We in the LGUs have already institutionalized funeral assistance to indigents, it is not too much to ask of similar assistance from funeral parlors in terms of discounts,” Pineda said. “If only for humanitarian considerations.”
3rd District board member Atty. Ananias Canlas, Jr. said he would be putting into resolutions “Nanay’s expressed agenda.”
