MANILA — The World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation Philippines (WAPR) on Monday urged the Philippine government and private organizations to deliver mental health services to remote areas.

Lucy Lazo, the president of the WAPR, said the stakeholders should think out of the box to come up with ways to bring mental health services to far-flung areas.

Lazo said this is in line with efforts to digitalize the Philippine mental health information system.

"We cannot expect the government to do everything for us and we are part of government. Therefore, we should think of what [we] should be contributing. So it's everybody's business," Lazo said.

According to Dr. Noel Reyes, the chief medical officer of the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH), they have been establishing linkages with regional centers to reach as many people as possible.

"Iniisip namin paano pa namin how to make available ang aming services sa mga Pilipino," Reyes said.

The Philippine Council for Mental Health has created a task force called the Committee on Mental Health Information and a Committee on Research to take steps to establish a national mental health information system, as mandated by the Philippine Mental Health Law of 2018.

The World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation and the Center for Informatics of the University of San Agustin in Iloilo are also collaborating with the NCMH to develop the digitalized information system which was first initiated last year.

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