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Miscellaneous

Roque to ensure implementation of Mental Health Act

UniTeam senatorial candidate Harry Roque would ensure the full implementation of the Mental Health Act, which he authored when he was still a congressman.

“What has to be done is to exercise the oversight power of the Senate, particularly in ensuring the health technical assessment committee under the Universal Health Care Law for free services to the people should authorize funding for mental health illnesses,” Roque said.

Roque, a former party-list representative, authored Republic Act 11306 or the Mental Health Act, which enhances the delivery of integrated mental health services to Filipinos and protects the rights of those availing psychosocial health services.

He said mental health disorders were classified as diseases that “should be cured and managed under the Mental Health Law.”

“It is high time that we allot specific sums of money from public offers towards the realization of the law to support the treatment and management of mental illness,” he said.

Roque also said that the full implementation of the law is needed as it is already crafted.

Under the said Act, a hotline will be established to deal with the problem of suicides arising from mental disorders.

“We should start it at the soonest time possible because it is understandable that many people now are suffering from more forms of mental illness due to the pandemic,” he added.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Philippine Special Initiative for Mental Health, at least 3.6 million Filipinos suffered from a mental, neurological, substance abuse disorder in 2020.

In 2021, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported that deaths due to intentional self-harm increased by 57.3 percent between 2019 and 2020. From the 2,810 thousand registered deaths in 2019, the number spiked to 4,420 thousand deaths.

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