Senate OKs mental health bill

MANILA, Philippines -  With a vote of 19-0, the Senate yesterday approved on third and final reading Senate Bill 1354 or the proposed Philippine Mental Health Law, which seeks to integrate mental health services and programs in the country’s public health system.

The bill was a consolidation of the bills filed by Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III and Sens. Risa Hontiveros, Loren Legarda, Antonio Trillanes IV, Bam Aquino, Sonny Angara and Joel Villanueva.

“I am very pleased on the quick passage of (the) mental health bill in the Senate. It is about time that this nation will have a law to aid those suffering from mental health disorder,” Sotto said during the first session day of Congress since going on break last March 18.

Sotto noted that two to three million Filipinos suffer from mental health problems but many of them go unreported due to the stigma attached to their condition.

Hontiveros, who sponsored the bill when she was still chair of the Senate committee on health, lauded the passage of the measure, which would mandate the establishment of basic mental health services at the community level and psychiatric, psychosocial and neurologic services in all regional, provincial and tertiary hospitals.