“All lives matter.

As human beings, it is our moral and legal obligation to save

the lives of others.”

Mr./Madam Chairman, to everyone, a pleasant afternoon.

For the purpose of this debate, we, the affirmative team, define the topic as the
Adoption of an Opt-out Model For Cadaveric Organ Donation. This means
that when a person dies he is treated as an organ donor unless he opted-out.

With this, the affirmative side believes that there is a need to adopt the opt-out
model because:

1) The present opt-in system is inherently ineffective in addressing the

disparity between the supply and demand of organs for transplantation

Ladies and Gentlemen, the 2017 World Health Organization (WHO) data shows
that deaths caused by various end-stage organ diseases involved up to 230,000
Filipinos. The Philippine Renal Disease Registry recorded 32,077 patients on
dialysis in 2018 with only 475 or 3.4% of the patients receiving a kidney
transplant. Moreover, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute, recorded
more than 8,000 patients on their list waiting for an organ donor.

The status quo definitely shows that there is a significant disparity between the
supply and demand of organ for transplantation system. This disparity, however,
stems out from the present opt-in system wherein those who have expressed
their consent to donate their organs are the only ones considered as organ
donors.

With this, it can be concluded that the opt-in system is inherently ineffective
considering that potential organ donors are burdened to follow the formalities of
the law under Section 8 of RA 7170 including the execution of a will in order to
be considered as an organ donor. According to Carl Cohen, an authority in the
field of philosophy and medicine and as pronounced by the World Health
Organization, opt-in organ donation provides a notion that the majority of people
support organ donation, but only a small percentage of the population are
actually registered, because they fail to go through the actual step of registration,
even if they want to donate their organs at the time of death.

This leads me to our proposition to adopt WHO’s GUIDING PRINCIPLES ON

HUMAN CELL, TISSUE AND ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION which recognizes the
opt-out system provided that its operation will hinge on 2 things.

First, that such a system should ensure that people are fully informed about the
policy and 2nd they are provided with an easy means to opt out. Thus, in our
proposition, let it be that the opt out model be implemented in 2 tranches. On
the First, there will be an educational and awareness drive, which includes
saturation of information to all who are covered by the system, and incorporation
of the information in our educational system before implementation; the creation
of more facilities and training of more personnel, and to create a digitized organ
donation registry and input the objections of person who would like to opt out
either through the registry or other means to communicate their objection to
donate. The final tranche would be the implementation proper.

To conclude, Mr./Madam Chairman, guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is

imperative that we adopt the opt-out system because of the need to save lives
and the inherent ineffectiveness of the opt-in system to address the disparity of
the supply and demand of organs for transplantation.

Once again, all lives matter. It is our moral and legal obligation to save the lives
of others. With this, we are proud to propose.