Filed
First Reading
Referred to the Committee on Health, Committee on Finance, Budget and ManagementNow
Parliament Bill No. 235
In committeeAn Act Establishing Tumbao General Hospital with Twenty-Five Bed Capacity in the Municipality of Kabuntalan and Appropriating Funds Therefor
Filed
First Reading
Referred to the Committee on Health, Committee on Finance, Budget and ManagementNow
Under committee study or floor debate. Amendments are still possible, and this is the stage where public input carries the most weight.
What this measure does
This establishes the Tumbao General Hospital with 25 beds in Kabuntalan, Maguindanao del Norte.
Why it was proposed
Kabuntalan has 17 barangays and roughly 25,000 people, and there is no hospital in the municipality at all.
The note is specific about where its patients go instead: when the need arises they have no option but to reach hospitals in Cotabato City or in Midsayap, North Cotabato — the second of which is outside the Bangsamoro region entirely.
Applying the Department of Health ratio of 1 bed per 1,000 population, a municipality of about 25,000 requires about 25 beds, which is what the bill proposes.
Who it affects
- The roughly 25,000 residents of Kabuntalan across 17 barangays, who have no hospital.
- Patients currently travelling to Cotabato City or to Midsayap in North Cotabato.
- Hospitals in Midsayap, outside the region, which absorb part of this catchment.
- The Ministry of Health, which would supervise the new hospital.
Who would implement it
- Ministry of Health, which would supervise the hospital and set its structure and staffing
Funding
Carries an appropriation. No amount is named; the title carries "appropriating funds therefor" and the operative text leaves the sum to the appropriations act. The comparable hospitals enacted in this registry each received ₱50 million initially, regardless of bed count.
What changes if it becomes law
- A municipality of about 25,000 with no hospital gains one.
- Patients stop having to leave the region to reach hospital care.
- Bed provision matches the Department of Health ratio for the municipality's population.
Raised during deliberations
No published record of the debate on this measure. Parliament’s journals cover sittings up to March 2023 only, and no committee report on it has been published.
What to notice
Midsayap is the detail that distinguishes this bill from its 3 companions. Kabuntalan's patients go to Cotabato City or to Midsayap in North Cotabato — and Midsayap is outside the Bangsamoro. So part of a Bangsamoro municipality's hospital care is currently delivered by a province the region does not govern, funded by a local government the region does not fund, under a referral pattern no regional plan controls.
That is a more consequential fact than a travel time. It means the region's own health statistics understate what its population uses, and that the cost of serving Kabuntalan currently falls partly on North Cotabato. It is also the mirror image of the Special Geographic Area problem elsewhere in this registry, where barangays that voted to join the Bangsamoro were still administered from North Cotabato — here the administration is regional and the hospital care is not.
The name is worth a note. The bill establishes the "Tumbao General Hospital" in the Municipality of Kabuntalan, Tumbao being the older name by which the municipality has been known — the same pattern as the Special Geographic Area acts, where Kabuntalan appears in the parliamentary districts schedule as "Kabuntalan (Tumbao)". A hospital named for the place rather than the current municipal designation is a small choice about which name the institution carries forward.
MP Ambolodto filed 4 hospital bills over 2 days in July 2023 — Buldon, Sultan Mastura, Kabuntalan and Cotabato City — and all 4 argue from the same method rather than from hardship. Each names the catchment, counts its population from the 2020 census, lists the hospitals serving it with their bed capacities, applies the Department of Health ratio of 1 bed per 1,000 people, and states the resulting shortfall. No other hospital bills in this registry do the arithmetic. All 4 remain at Second Reading, Committee Stage.
A drafting note common to the set: the constitutional citations are unreliable. Three of the 4 bills cite the right to health as "Section 15, Article III" when it is Article II, and 1 cites the integrated-approach provision as "Section 11, Article XII" when it is Article XIII. Each bill has at least 1 wrong reference and they are not wrong in the same way, which is what happens when a shared preamble is retyped rather than copied.
Sources