Campaign seeks holistic approach to cancer prevention, early detection
Dr. Corazon Ngelangel, president of the Philippine Cancer Society, tells The Manila Times on Oct. 2, 2025 that the Access to Cancer Treatment Now (ACT NOW) campaign’s expansion aims to make cancer prevention and early detection more holistic, addressing multiple organ sites and promoting comprehensive healthcare across the country.
VIDEO BY ALLEN LIMOS
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00:00It's not really new. It started way back and we call the whole cancer campaign act now.
00:09And it started with breast because that's the highest number of breast cancer in the Philippines.
00:17And then we doubled it up with cervix.
00:21But it's only now that we now focus with cervix because it has something to do with not only early detection of cervical cancer,
00:29but also of vaccination, HPV vaccination and cancer awareness.
00:35Now we're going into, we're moving forward also for Acnau lung, early detection lung,
00:42and Acnau liver cancer early detection.
00:46So that's why it's not new, it's there, but we're just adding on other organ sites to be early detected.
00:55Making it a holistic health care.
00:58There are nine or eight or nine, I think it was mentioned earlier, LGUs here showcasing their best practices.
01:04Now, how important is it that the Philippine Cancer Society partners up with local LGUs in terms of expanding cancer, the reach of or increasing cancer screening in the country?
01:18Okay.
01:19The LGUs is the one connected with communities.
01:23They're the one overseeing all the health programs, the implementation of the health programs in the communities.
01:32So they're very, very important.
01:34The Philippine Cancer Society is just a small NGO, which is basically, well, we're just catalyst facilitators.
01:44And so we offer our help to all the LGUs who would, who we, who we would want to do the Acnau programs.
01:56You know, we have this NICA law, National Integrated Cancer Control law since 2019.
02:02Yeah.
02:03And it got really going only in 2022 because of the COVID pandemic.
02:08Yeah.
02:09So one of the, the coverage of the NICA law is actually from awareness to screening, to early detection, diagnosis, treatment, and then cancer surveillance and then end of life and cancer survivorship.
02:27So it's the whole span of the cancer spectrum.
02:32And Philippine Cancer Society also has that goal to, um, to push all the government, um, programs, helping them to go, to move into the community.
02:45Uh, the government actually, we, we at the government level has the law, but somebody has to push it.
02:52Yes.
02:53For integration.
02:54Yeah.
02:55And, uh, the civil society, which is, uh, where in the cancer, Philippine Cancer Society belongs to, are, what you call, the one who, the watchdogs.
03:06Mm-hmm.
03:07Uh, to see that all the laws should be implemented and where it should be implemented.
03:12And, uh, and hence we're doing this right now with the ACNOW campaign.
03:17For the breast cancer, we started first with Quezon City.
03:20And Quezon City is really a very, very nice, uh, city to go to because it's very receptive to, to, to health, uh, control.
03:29Mm-hmm.
03:30And, uh, they came up, uh, it's actually the first city who came up with the cancer control.
03:34Mm-hmm.
03:35Ordinance.
03:36We call it the, um, local, localization of NICA.
03:40So, it was the first one who came up with the ordinance, uh, took all what was in the NICA law and put it in the local law.
03:52Mm-hmm.
03:53Ang quan kasi natin is the NICA spreads over the country.
03:57Mm-hmm.
03:58But it is dependent on the local unit, uh, local government unit to catch it.
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