Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Ray Villafuerte has renewed his call for the Senate to immediately approve a proposed expansion of the country’s Medical Reserve Corps in preparation for future public health emergencies.
The proposed MRC may also be mobilized during times of calamities to provide immediate aid during rescue and relief operations, he said.
The House of Representatives has already approved the legislative measure earlier this year, but its counterpart bill remains pending at the committee level in the Senate.
“With global health experts confirming that this won’t be our last pandemic, we must continue to strengthen our healthcare system starting with the people who will man the frontlines in our fight against the next global health crisis,” he said.
Villafuerte is one of the principal authors of the House-approved Medical Reserve Corps Act.
“I hope that the Senate can still find time to act on this measure, given the bill’s urgency and necessity,” he said.
Under House Bill No. 8999, the MRC would be composed of licensed physicians, medicine graduates, medical students, registered nurses and other allied health professionals, including those who have retired and are no longer practicing in the hospital setting.
The President, upon the recommendation of the Department of Health, may also order the mobilization of the MRC to complement the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Medical Corps “in case of the declaration of a state of war, state of lawless violence or state of calamity.”
The bill provides that members of the MRC be covered by labor laws and entitled to “all the pay and allowances, medical care, hospitalization and other privileges and benefits” during their deployment, and receive all their existing benefits from their regular jobs during the mobilization period.