1 week Ago By N/A (Philip Cu Unjieng)
HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Our second ever Manila Bulletin Sustainability Focus Session happens this week, on April 30, at the University of Santo Tomas. If you recall, we began the Manila Bulletin Sustainability Forum back in 2022, have had three successful iterations since then; and thought to extend the “brand” via these Focus Sessions. The Forum will always be the showcase gathering of like-minded companies, of LGU’s and Government entities, talking Sustainability across a diverse range of interests and industries.
As its name would suggest, the Focus Session would take on a particular theme, and look for resource speakers within those thematic parameters, and find the suitable, filtered audience.One important and unique component of both the Forums and Focus Sessions is the audience. We establish partnerships with academic institutions, and they provide the audiences for these activities.
We’ve partnered with the University of the Philippines twice, and this upcoming Focus Session is our second engagement with the University of Santo Tomas. Talks are already underway to expand these academic partnerships for later in the year, with new “players.” Collateral for our upcoming MB Sustainability Focus Session on Healthcare, Access to Medicine, and Nutrition.
The reason for this specific audience is very clear, as an integral part of our mission vision at the Manila Bulletin is to inform, inspire and empower. And when it comes to Sustainability-driven initiatives, it’s the youth above all who we seek to build awareness with, and to motivate. And the simplest reason for this is that it’s really their future we’re talking about.
We can discourse all we want about reducing carbon emission targets by 2030, or drastically limiting the local use of plastic waste by 2040; and it’s obvious there is no instant gratification for targets set in a future that’s five years down the road, or more than a decade away. The truth is I might not even be around in 2040; but all my three sons hopefully will be, and so will their children. So it’s important that we drive home the importance of these 17 SDGs (Sustainability Driven Goals) to the Youth sector, and that they’re adhered to as a framework and roadmap for how we need to act now, to ensure a better future for the generations to come.
If in September 2024, our first Focus Session at UST was on Green Real Estate and Renewable Energy, this Wednesday is about Envisioning the Future of Healthcare here in the Philippines – and how it’s connected to access to medicines, and to nutrition. This affects SDG #3 Good Health and Well-Being, and indirectly impacts such SDG’s as #2 Zero Hunger, #6 Clean Water and Sanitation, #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, and #12 Responsible Production and Consumption. UST in turn, will bring in an audience consisting of students from their Colleges of Medicine, of Pharmacy, of Nutrition, and even from Tourism – given the mandate of the DOT to develop Medical Tourism.
What we hope to achieve via the resource speakers and corporate entities who will participate at the session is to create a viable, realistic “snapshot” of the state of Philippine Healthcare today; and properly discourse on where we are headed, and what we can do to fast-track and/or improve the situation. Just last year, there was ₱28.58 billion budgeted for Healthcare – how do we optimize this funding? The ultimate target is to make the Universal Healthcare Law that was passed in 2019 a reality; and not some pipe dream that’s already enacted into law, but isn’t supported by the infrastructure that exists on ground.
When our Universal Healthcare Act was passed, the hoped-for ‘dream’.Department of Heath Sec. Teddy Herbosa is slated to be our keynote speaker, and there will be speakers from AC Health – Healthway, Watsons, The Medical City, Maxicare, The Generics Pharmacy, and a talk on nutrition tendered by Mesa ni Misis’ Juana Manahan-Yupangco.
From medical facilities, to HMO’s, to retail drug stores; a good cross-section of the players that will help form the future of Philippine Healthcare will be participating in this Focus Session of April 30.You’ll appreciate how these are the companies that these students may be applying to work for, or be interacting with, in their near future. And it’s not lost on us how several of these companies figured in the recently held Healthcare Asia Awards 2025.
No matter how critical or cynical your view may be on the state of Healthcare in the country, these are the ones who are moving it forward, and striving to make a difference.When global observers talk of countries with effective universal healthcare systems in place for their citizens; Sweden, Denmark, Canada, and Australia are often cited. Nearer to home, it’s South Korea and Thailand that are mentioned.
The average Thai citizen only spends nine percent out-of-pocket for their medical expenses; while depending on whose data you rely on, the Filipino spends close to, if not more than, 50 percent. That’s one sobering thought to keep in mind, when gauging why this Focus Session is relevant, or should resonate with the public..
