WHO IS MONITORING THE MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM?

Who is monitoring the mental health problem in the Philippines? I know it is the DOH, but which unit of the DOH? And where are they posting their reports? Of course, it is one thing to monitor a problem, it is another thing to report it. Besides, what good are their accomplishments if they are not telling us about it? The recent incident involving suicide in a Metro Manila mall has again brought attention to the issue of mental health in our country. No one is calling it an epidemic yet, but it seems that the numbers are significant enough for the government to pay more attention to this problem. To me, this looks like a cause-and-effect problem. Most possibly, suicide is caused by a mental health problem, if that is not too obvious yet. At the risk of generalizing too much, I would even say that the mental health problem is the effect of the illegal drugs problem, as if we do not know that yet. Of course, there could be other causes of mental problem, but it would not be wrong to say that somehow, the illegal drugs problem always gets into the equation here and there. That is why I always say that drug addiction should be treated as a health problem, specifically a mental health problem. At the risk of being accused of making too sweeping accusations, I would even say that poverty, or the conditions brought about by poverty could also result in mental health problems. IKE SENERES/09088877282/12-30-2023/iseneres@yahoo.com