LegisHealth 2026

Many of the Philippines' landmark public health reforms began in local councils before they shaped national policy. Quezon City pioneered comprehensive smoke-free and vape-free rules, and its Right to Care Ordinance allowed LGBTQIA+ couples to act as each other's healthcare proxies. City and municipal councils decide which ordinances pass, how they are enforced and how much of the budget goes to health, which makes them a natural starting point for healthier communities.

That authority does not always come with the resources to match it. Many LGUs lack sustained access to technical expertise, tested model ordinances and peers who have attempted the same reforms elsewhere. Much of that knowledge already exists among advocacy groups, researchers and the legal community, ready to be put to work at the local level.

LegisHealth was built to connect the two. It is the batch project of the 12th batch of the FES Academy of Political Management (APM), the flagship program of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Philippines for progressive political leaders and policy practitioners. APM asks each batch to apply its training to a real gap in its own community or field. Batch 12, whose members now belong to Balai APM, the Academy's alumni organization, chose local health legislation. It organized LegisHealth with the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Nueva Ecija Chapter, whose network reaches councilors across the province and whose lawyers can support ordinance drafting and review.

LegisHealth assumes that councilors pass stronger health ordinances when evidence, adaptable models and expert partners are within reach, and when proposed measures are tested against the lives of the people they will affect. The initiative brings all of these into one room, then stays with participants as they carry the work back to their councils.

LegisHealth 2026: Councilors for Health Governance took place on September 29, 2026 at Nieto Hall, NEUST Sumacab Campus in Cabanatuan City, under the theme "Empowering Local Legislators to Champion Evidence-Based Health Policies." It convened [NUMBER] health committee chairpersons and members from [NUMBER] of Nueva Ecija's 32 LGUs, with support from FES Philippines and the Philippine Councilors League (PCL).

The program centered on three policy areas, each backed by a working local model. The Philippine Smoke-Free Movement presented model smoke-free and vape-free ordinances, with a focus on protecting children and young people from tobacco and nicotine. PANTAY presented the Right to Care and how local governments can support non-discriminatory access to healthcare decisions. HealthJustice Philippines addressed healthy food environments, including front-of-pack warning labels, as non-communicable diseases remain among the leading causes of death in the country. Each partner gave councilors model ordinances and policy tools they can adapt to their own LGUs.

Councilors then moved from evidence to their own constituencies. In an empathy-mapping workshop, they examined how proposed measures would affect youth, women, older persons, Indigenous Peoples, workers and LGBTQIA+ communities, and where local evidence was still missing. Each LGU closed the day with a Legislative Action Plan naming one priority ordinance, the stakeholders and champions needed to move it, and the next steps toward filing.

For FES, the project reflects a long-held view of health as a question of fairness. Illness falls hardest on the poor, women, the elderly and communities far from services, and individual effort can only do so much against secondhand smoke or the price of healthier food. Public rules adopted through democratic institutions close to citizens extend that protection to everyone and outlast any single term of office. Strengthening such institutions has guided FES in the Philippines since 1964, rooted in the social democratic values of freedom, justice and solidarity.

With the workshop concluded, the organizers are consolidating each LGU's priorities and requests for technical assistance, and will connect councilors with the IBP and partner organizations for legal review, evidence and consultation support. A follow-up within six months will document what participating LGUs have done since. Progress will be measured by these concrete steps, since ordinance adoption depends on local political and administrative timelines longer than a single project. The findings will shape whether LegisHealth continues as a recurring platform and whether the model can be adapted for other provinces through FES, Balai APM and IBP networks.