‘Doctor Para sa Bayan’

(First of 2 parts)

One of the most significant accomplishments of the Duterte and Marcos administrations is the enactment and implementation of RA 11509, the Doctor Para sa Bayan law, which expands access to medical education and provides scholarships and grants to medical students and schools.

Credit must be given to the legislators who pushed for this measure and consistently secured funding for its implementation – Senators Pia Cayetano, Joel Villanueva and Sonny Angara.

The rationale for this law is simple. We face a severe shortage of physicians, particularly in remote areas where many people are born, grow up and die without ever seeing a doctor.

There have been previous attempts to address the situation, such as the DOH Doctor to the Barrios program, scholarships from DOH and CHED and the return service system of UP Manila, which required their medical school graduates to stay in the country for three years after graduation.

Many don’t know that CHED began offering scholarships to medical students in 2018, when Sens. Ping Lacson and Loren Legarda realigned P8.3 billion of DPWH infrastructure funds for the ARMM to CHED during the GAA deliberations.

They argued that these funds were prone to corruption and were a pork barrel allocation in the proposed national budget.

P300 million of the P8.3-billion realignment was for medical scholarships (P300 million) in state universities and colleges.

But a clear and sustained policy was not in place.

The passage of the Doktor Para sa Bayan law solved this by: 1. Mandating CHED to facilitate the establishment of at least one public medical school in every region; 2. Providing scholarships for financially needy medical students; 3. Requiring a return service agreement for students who avail of government assistance; 4. Instructing CHED and DOH to collaborate in the placement of medical school graduates for their return service upon passing the licensure examination.

Clear mandates and supportive legislators

What are the critical elements that facilitated effective policy making and implementation?

First, unlike many laws passed on the basis of what legislators believed was necessary, legislators led by Sen. Pia Cayetano framed the law with input from and in consultation with CHED and medical schools.

Senator Cayetano organized several Zoom meetings among the senators, SUC presidents and CHED during the pandemic to discuss requirements for establishing medical schools and the needs for medical and laboratory equipment, faculty recruitment and infrastructure.

During these discussions, I asserted that if we open public medical schools, strict standards must be imposed so that quality is never compromised; subsidies and grants must be provided so SUCs have laboratories and medical equipment that rival those of premier private schools.

The Senate supported the move to provide CHED funds for equipment grants to existing and new medical schools. The construction of buildings for newly opened medical schools will be provided directly to qualified SUCs.

Learning from the problems encountered under the Free Higher Education Law (RA 10931), the proposed bills included detailed provisions on return service. Clear and precise language empowering CHED to ensure compliance with standards for the opening of medical programs was also written into the law.

Expanding the number of medical schools

Before the Doktor Para sa Bayan law, there were only eight public medical schools nationwide. Five were in Luzon (MMSU in Ilocos Norte, UNP in Ilocos Sur, CSU in Cagayan, UP Manila and BSU in Albay) and two were in the Visayas (West Visayas State University and UP Palo School of Health Sciences). There was only one public medical school in all of Mindanao (MSU Marawi).

I told then president Duterte that CHED will correct this historical injustice against Mindanao during his term.

SUCs that wanted to open a medical school faced the challenge of securing a DOH Level III training hospital (with four sub-specializations), developing their curriculum and recruiting a qualified dean and teaching faculty.

Legislators were a constant headache. They questioned the requirements for opening a medical program, badgered CHED to fast-track the approval of SUC applications in their districts and even threatened to block the CHED budget if their favored SUC’s application was not prioritized.

Several legislators filed bills to establish an SUC medical program in their district, believing this would expedite CHED approval. Interestingly, the first SUCs that secured CHED approval did not require a law; they complied with CHED requirements.

Rather than thinking from scratch, I instructed the SUC presidents to benchmark against the two most established public medical schools – UP Manila and WVSU.

Four outstanding educators – WVSU president Bebong Villaruz, MSU GenSan chancellor Usman Aragasi, and UP Manila chancellor Mike Tee and dean Charlotte Chiong – stood out for opening their medical schools to visiting SUCs, mentoring them in curriculum development and equipment procurement and providing access to their medical alumni to identify doctors who can be recruited as administrators and faculty.

The promise to correct the historical injustice against Mindanao has been fulfilled. From one medical school (MSU Marawi), eight more have been established (WMSU in Zamboanga, USeP in Davao, MSU GenSan, BSU in Bukidnon, SKSU in Sultan Kudarat, USTP in Misamis Oriental, USM in Cotabato and Caraga State University).

From the original eight SUCs, there are now 28 SUCs with medical programs, all offering scholarships to financially needy students through the CHED MSRS program, provided with state-of-the-art medical equipment in their classrooms and have new buildings and dormitories for their students.