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Political will to spend on health, infrastructure: Sen. Pia Cayetano, during the proposed 2022 national budget deliberation Wednesday, November 10, 2021, says she is using the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as a blueprint to review the proposed national budget for next year. Cayetano underscored the need to annually fund education and health infrastructure that is consistent with the country’s obligations as a party to the United Nations 2030 SDG agenda. “We are far from the 5 percent on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spending on health as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). And it’s not only this administration. So, there really is a need to close that gap. We have to find the political will,” Cayetano said. Angara, chairman of the Committee on Finance, said that while he agreed with Cayetano that the country was still far from the 5 percent targeted spending, it has posted gains on the health and education sectors. For instance, he said the Senate version of the proposed budget for health was increased to P226.7 billion or double the amount of the agency’s budget of P101 billion in 2020. He said the country also used to spend 2 percent to 3 percent of the GDP for the whole education sector but hit 3.8 percent of the GDP last year. (Voltaire Domingo/Senate PRIB)