Department of Health distances self from charter change talk | ABS-CBN

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Department of Health distances self from charter change talk

Department of Health distances self from charter change talk

ABS-CBN News

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MANILA — The Department of Health on Tuesday distanced itself from alleged campaigns for charter change that lawmakers said started this month.

Sen. Imee Marcos, chair of the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People's Participation, claimed on Monday that unnamed proponents of charter change were offering P20 million in aid to provinces where at least 3 percent of registered voters would sign a petition to amend the 1987 Constitution.

The signatures are allegedly for an attempt at charter change through people's initiative, a mode that has twice failed at the Supreme Court.

"The only consideration of the DOH for the distribution of medical assistance for indigent and financially incapacitated patients is their circumstance as evaluated by a licensed social worker at a hospital or health facility," the department, which was among the agencies that Marcos claimed the aid would go through, said in a statement.

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Marcos claimed that the gathering of signatures has started in the Ilocos region, in Bicol, and in Central and Eastern Visayas.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman made a similar claim over the weekend, saying mayors of the province were called to a Jan. 5 meeting where they were given signature sheets for their constituents to sign.

He said that "voters who would sign the petition for people's initiative will be given P100 each, 50 percent of which has already been advanced to the municipal mayors and respective coordinators."

AKO BICOL Party-list Rep. Raul Angelo "Jil" Bongalon and Polangui, Albay Mayor Raymond Adrian Salceda have denied Lagman's claim, calling it untrue, "false and utterly ridiculous."

Alfredo Garbin Jr., former AKO BICOL representative and former chair of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments, said that while charter change was discussed at the League of Municipalities of the Philippines meeting on Jan. 5, the allegation that money was released is "a wild and baseless accusation."

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