Kyra’s Story
My name is Kyra Ballesteros, and I am the deputy for research and innovation with the volunteer-run, non-government, non-stock, and non-profit civil society organization, Mental Health PH, based in the Philippines.
The recently released Philippine Development Plan 2023-28 ensures that mental health continues to be a priority area for investments, interventions, and for program and project-level funding across sectors. The PDP also outlines strategies to boost health and promote human and social development, which include the following outcomes: improved social determinants of health, enabled healthy choices and behaviors, improved access, quality, and efficiency of health care, and strengthened health systems.
Mental health is named a priority sector as part of the government’s push to improve the social determinants of health. Reforms in providing mental health services will be grounded in multisectoral and multistakeholder approaches for a “whole of government, whole of society approach to health”. Some of the developmental institutions tapped to provide these services include education agencies (healthy schools on comprehensive sexuality education, mental health, and healthy lifestyle) and the Department of Labor and Employment, and the Civil Service Commission (DOLE, CSC, to provide for nutrition, physical activity, and mental health needs of their stakeholder employed in the public and private sectors, respectively).
Some of the challenges recognized by the PDP contribute significantly to the overall continued vulnerability of Filipino communities and households, in particular, those who live under the poverty line, or who are members of historically marginalized communities. Foremost among these challenges is a fragmented public health system unable to provide equitable access to primary and higher-level healthcare services. According to the plan, LGU investments in the health sector will vary greatly across the archipelago, and this contributes to the fragmented nature of healthcare service coverage.
Despite how mental health services are mandated as part of the Mental Health Act (republic act 11036), and the continued visibility of mental health issues and concerns at the highest level of prioritization for the national government, only 1.4 percent of the Philippines’ health expenditure was spent on initiatives to address behavioral and mental conditions in 2021.
This is where the opportunities lie: in demanding that programs at the national level be cascaded efficiently, to the grassroots, across various sectors in a coordinated manner. The PDP’s strategies open dialogues to various departments – DEPED / CHED / Civil Service Commission, and the Department of Labor and Employment, to name a few) to demand mainstreaming of mental health projects and programs, and to ensure more efficient services, more diverse and a greater variety of services in every sector, and at every possible level of access that considers, addresses, and answers barriers experienced by the most marginalized Filipino communities. The national strategy’s insistence on a whole of government, and whole of society approach to address the gaps in the provision of mental health services means that service users, and civil service organizations, and advocacy groups can come into greater and more meaningful dialogue as it recognizes mental health as everyone’s priority.
Some of the work that I’ve done as part of #MentalHealthPH has been in service of raising awareness about mental health conditions and issues. I began as an advocate and volunteer running one of the organization’s flagship projects. #UsapTayo is a regular tweetchat session that happens every 0s of the month (10s, 20s, 30s) with the ultimate goal of zero-ing the suicide rate in the Philippines. We safeguard these spaces online to ensure that filipinos like us have a space to talk about mental health concerns, our experiences, and to offer support. These spaces amplify the reach of our advocacy, and it sustains the community.
We also recently finished a research project on kindness, specifically how Filipinos exhibit, perform, and conceive of kind acts. To highlight one or two findings: we discovered that our respondents perform acts of kindness as an empathetic response to circumstances, or as a response to the needs of others. We also found that receiving acts of kindness can bolster the belief that the individual recipient is worthy of care and caring acts.
Persons in my life living with mental health conditions and myself experiencing anxiety and depression made me want to understand why it was difficult to find help in the Philippines. I also wanted to ensure that finding and accessing these resources were not as restrictive and difficult for anybody else.
Global networks can help provide consistent access to opportunities for training advocates on the ground on sustaining advocacy programs, and on upskilling organization members. Global linkages can also bring more visibility, which can attract support and funding for projects that we want to continue building. Sharing best practices also helps widen our horizon, helps us ask better questions about how we can transform our advocacy by reaching underserved communities.
Open access and regional research: As a researcher who doesn’t come from the public health sector, or who isn’t a medical professional in any capacity, what I can offer is a different perspective. But to do this, I need to learn. Open access to research can help sustain our own research agenda, so that down the line we might make our own contribution. More regional coordination in Southeast Asia to help strengthen our mutual concerns, and to ensure greater coordination among ASEAN countries.
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