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By Efren L. Danao, Senior
Reporter
Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas 2nd
on Monday said “lobbyists” had raised the issue of price control
as a last-ditch effort to derail enactment of the Cheaper Medicines
Act in the House of Representatives.
“Everything was already ironed
out, but some are still against it. They still would not want to
approve it. They are still looking for something to complain about.
This might be the last card of the lobby,” Roxas pointed out, as
he appealed to the House to ratify a bicameral report on the
proposal as a gift to Filipinos on Labor Day on May 1.
House Speaker Prospero Nograles
apparently heard the plea. Sounding optimistic, he said he had told
the House contingent to the bicameral conference on the Cheaper
Medicines Act, which is also known as the Quality Affordable
Medicines Act, to allow enactment of the proposal before May 1. He
cited assurances given him by the contingent on strict conditions
set to ensure that the full intention of the law—bring down the
cost of medicines—is carried out.
The House Speaker, in a
statement, said that while he was uncomfortable with the removal of
the “generics-only” provision from the proposal, he was at ease
with the deletion of the regulatory-board provision from it.
Pharmaceutical lobby
Unlike Roxas, Rep. Risa
Hontiveros Baraquel of party-list Akbayan named lobbyists allegedly
out to kill the Cheaper Medicines Act. She identified them as Eli
Lily, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Wyeth—all alleged members of the
lobby group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
This lobby group, she said, worked the Office of the US Trade
Representative for it to scuttle the bill.
“Predictably, the US Trade
Representative talked to some legislators last December to lobby
against the bill,” Baraquel told reporters.
Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio
Aguinaldo Abaya, also in a statement, said he had received reports
on a “multimillion [public-relations] slush fund to discredit the
bill and its key authors.” He added that the alleged demolition
job may be tied to the 2010 elections. Roxas, the principal author
of the Quality Affordable Medicines Act, is considered among the
frontrunners in the presidential race in 2010. Abaya was a co-author
of the bill in the House.
Roxas said the leaders of the
House panel to the bicameral conference had endorsed the bicameral
report that removed the regulatory board, which will control prices
of medicines. Some congressmen charged that the bicameral report had
watered the bill down with the removal of the board.
“What should we do now?”
Roxas asked. “We will not pass it because a few are against it?”
Roxas insisted that the Quality
Affordable Medicines Act has become even stronger because
accountability on drug prices now rests with the President and the
secretary of the Health department.
“It is difficult to pinpoint
accountability in a [regulatory] board. A board is the dumping place
of election losers and relatives of powerful politicians. It is
clearer, more transparent, if only one person, the Health secretary,
has the power to set the price ceiling,” he said.
Roxas wondered why some
congressmen are against giving President Gloria Arroyo the power to
regulate drug prices when they had already given her the power to
fix the price of rice through the National Food Authority.
“Are they saying that the price
of drugs would go down if the power is vested in a board, but it
won’t go down if it is with the President?” he asked.
Roxas assured lawmakers that the
bicameral report contains all tools needed to help bring down the
costs of medicines. Among these are parallel importation to improve
competition and strengthening of the Bureau of Food and Drugs so
that it can process the importation of quality drugs faster.
He said the bicameral report
contains a “no-discrimination” clause so that all drugstores
would be the first to place competing products on the shelves.
“All provisions, all powers
conceived by the House and the Senate to be bestowed on [the
regulatory] board are in the bill, but not [vested in] nameless,
faceless, unaccountable board members.” Roxas added. “We placed
[this accountability] on the Office of the President and the
Secretary of Health.”
House contingent
on bicam panel
Nograles said he was giving the
House contingent to the bicameral conference headed by Palawan Rep.
Antonio Alvarez full autonomy to deal with the Senate. The Speaker
added that he will support the panel’s decision on whether “to
go or not to go” for ratification of the final bicameral report on
the Cheaper Medicines Act.
If both Houses agree on the final
draft of the bicameral report, they will then separately ratify the
proposal and the consolidated bill will be transmitted to President
Arroyo for signing into law.
Passing the Quality Affordable
Medicines Act cannot wait any longer, said former Sen. Ernesto
Herrera, now chairman of the Trade Union Congress of the
Philippines.
Also in a statement, he called
for immediate passage of the bill “to provide relief to the
working class, many of whom are already suffering from high oil and
food prices.”
Herrera said the right to
affordable medicines is a constitutional one. “We should not be
deprived this right by those who have vested interests in seeing
this bill derailed.”
The inclusion of the regulatory
board in the bill raises the question of “motives,” the former
senator said.
“Why hold the entire bill
hostage to this obsession for a drug price board? This can be a
potential source of red tape and corruption,” he warned.
Herrera said they
“absolutely” favor the Senate version, which gives the Secretary
of Health the authority to review drug prices and to recommend to
President Arroyo as to which medicines should be price-regulated.
--With Sammy Martin
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