Duterte signs mental health law

FILE: For Hontiveros, Duterte’s signing will set the path for the government’s policy in including mental healthcare to the country’s public healthcare system (ROBINSON NIÑAL JR./PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO)

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has legalized Republic Act (RA) No. 11036 – the Philippine Mental Health Law.

Authored and sponsored by Senator Risa Hontiveros in the upper house, the Philippine Mental Health Law will secure the rights and welfare of persons with mental health needs and mental health professionals.

This law will provide mental health services to the barangays; integrate psychiatric, psychosocial, and neurologic services in regional, provincial, and tertiary hospitals; improve our mental healthcare facilities and promote mental health education in our schools and workplaces.

For Hontiveros, Duterte’s signing will set the path for the government’s policy in including mental healthcare to the country’s public healthcare system. She has earlier urged the President to sign the bill this month, as both the Senate and the House of Representatives ratified it last May.

“Help is finally here,” she said in a statement on Jun 21, Thursday.

“This is the victory of the different advocates who helped in crafting the bill and ensured its passage of the different advocates who helped in crafting the bill and ensured its passage from the time we filed it last October 2016,” she added.

Hontiveros said that she is glad and honored to be a “messenger of hope” for everyone who wanted the legislation of the said law.

“No longer shall Filipinos suffer silently in the dark. The people’s mental health issues will now cease to be seen as an invisible sickness spoken only in whispers,” she added.

The Senator also cited different statistics, saying that everyday, seven Filipinos turn to suicide, and that one in five Filipino adults suffers from a form of mental disorder.

The bill was also authored by Senate President Vicente Sotto III, Senator Loren Legarda, Senator Antonio “Sonny” Trillanes IV, Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino, Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara and Joel Villanueva on February 27, 2017.

It was passed by the upper and lower houses on February 12 this year.