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CODE-NGO’s Project with PBSP TB LINC

At this day and age when tuberculosis (TB) is no longer a public health problem among first world countries, and despite the fact that our government provides free health care and drugs for TB patients, the Philippines still ranks 9th of 22 high TB burden countries in the world.  TB is also the 6th leading cause of death in the country, with 75 Filipinos dying of the illness daily.  While TB cases and mortality rates have been declining since 1990s, the rate of decline will not be fast enough to meet our MDG target on TB incidence.  Thus, it is most critical for various sectors to act together for a collective response to aggressively control TB.  

CODE-NGO signed up to support the fight against TB through the program of the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) on Linking and Networking Initiatives to Control Tuberculosis (TB LINC).  Funded by USAID, PBSP’s TB LINC project supports DOH and the LGUs in the country’s TB control initiatives and in achieving its national target of detecting 70% of TB cases and curing 85% of these cases.

CODE-NGO’s project with TB LINC involves documenting effective community-led practices to control the disease and in mobilizing CSOs to help strengthen multi-sectoral collaboration to fight TB in 4 provinces in Mindanao: Zamboanga Sur, Zamboanga Sibugay, Sarangani and Maguindanao.  It partners with its member networks and base NGOs such as HealthDev and MINCODE and its affiliates Xavier Agriculture Extension Service (XAES) in Zamboanga and CO Multiversity in Cotabato to implement the project in these provinces.  (The TB LINC project of PBSP covers 18 provinces all over the country.)

Since TB is a disease that primarily affects people living in poverty, TB continues to disproportionately affect the most vulnerable sectors because of issues related to poor nutrition, poor housing, lack of access to health care and medicines and geographical barriers.  Thus, CODE-NGO hopes to help surface health issues of the most vulnerable sectors – including the indigenous peoples (IPs), agrarian reform communities and internally-displaced peoples, among others, in its project sites in Mindanao.  It also aims to identify mechanisms on how TB health care and medicines could reach the most vulnerable sectors more effectively, by engaging other government agencies, such as the Department of Health (DOH), National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) at the local and national levels for appropriate TB  health policies.  It also engages the local government units (LGUs), in partnership with the League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP) and the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) to make TB health care a priority program of the LGUs.

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Partner Organizations

Implementing Partners:

Healh Alternatives for Total Human Development, Inc. (HealthDev), Quezon City

Mindanao Coalition of Development NGO Networks (MINCODE), Davao City

Xavier Agricultural Extension Services (XAES) Zamboanga Sibugay

Community Organizers’ Multiversity (COM) – Cotabato

Supported by:

Philippine Business for Social Progress – TB LINC Project

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Reaching the underserved: fighting tuberculosis through community agenda-building and involvement

“With health as a basic right and need of the communities we work with, CSOs need to build its capacities for evidence-based health advocacy and mainstream health concerns into our programs.”  This is just one of the key messages heard in CODE-NGO’s recent forum on “TB Control-Focused Participatory Governance in Health.”  NGOs, indigenous peoples (IP) and farmers groups from the Mindanao provinces of Maguindanao, Sarangani, Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga Sibugay had the opportunity to dialogue with representatives of government agencies DOH, DSWD, DAR, DILG, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) on how the government’s TB health care and other health services can better reach their communities.  DOH National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Program Manager Dr. Rosalind Vianzon also presented the country’s TB situationer and how CSOs can contribute to combating the disease.

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