By JUN M. VELASCO

HEALTH Secretary Francisco T. Duque III has appealed to all sectors to rally behind the national campaign against cancer, stressing that the fight against the killer disease can only be won if people work and cooperate with each other.

In a press conference at the Casino Español, Duque confirmed that cancer is now the third leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the country.

The renewed drive against the killer disease was in observance of National Cancer Consciousness Week which is marked every third week of January in the country as mandated by Presidential Proclamation No. 1348.

“The Department of Health asks the Philippine Cancer Society and all members of the Health Lifestyles Coalition, the medical community, patients and their support groups, the media and all stakeholders to rally behind the national campaign against cancer,” Duque said.

“Chronic diseases including cancer are now the largest cause of suffering and deaths among Filipinos,” he said, citing the Lancet Report on Chronic Diseases.

The report noted that “the Philippines is one of 23 countries that contribute around 80 percent of the total burden of chronic disease mortality all over the world in which 13 percent of the deaths is on account of fatal and disabling cancer.”

Duque lamented that despite the ominous trend of rising cancer incidence and mortality, there has been inadequate financial and political response to upscale efforts for effective cancer prevention and control.”

Awareness among the public is also far from promising, he said.

“Locally, our statistics say that one in 1,800 Filipinos is diagnosed with cancer each year and that for every two new cases, one will succumb to death because interventions are only given when cancer has already worsened to far advanced stages,”

“We should join the global call of the World Health Organization for countries to confront the growing burden of cancers by targeting to reduce our cancer-specific death rate by 2 percent over the next 10 years,” Duque declared