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President Arroyo might be waiting for a photo-op, or photo
opportunity, before signing the “Universally Accessible Cheaper
and Quality Medicines Act of 2008,” Senate President Manuel Villar
said over the weekend.
Villar said he and Speaker Prospero Nograles Jr.
had already signed the enrolled bill and all that was needed for the
measure to become a law was the President’s signature.
“The enrolled bill is now with Malacañang. I
don’t know why she has not signed it yet since it is a Malacañang-certified
bill. Maybe she is waiting for a photo-op,” he told The Manila
Times.
Villar said the bill may lapse into law if
President Arroyo does not sign it within 30 days from receipt.
However, he did not believe that the President would allow it to
lapse into law through her inaction.
It took almost four years for Congress to pass
the measure, formerly called the Cheaper Medicines Act. The Senate
passed its version in the 13th Congress but the House did not, so
the measure had to be refilled in the 14th Congress. Malacañang,
the Senate and the House all identified it as a priority measure.
Malacañang’s certification of the bill as urgent enabled the
measure to breeze through the usually long drawn-out legislative
process.
Health Undersecretary Alex Padilla had claimed
that a US lobby group is trying to keep the President from signing
the measure. Villar and Sen. Mar Roxas, principal author of the
Senate version, did not echo this claim but they wondered why it was
taking Malacañang this long to sign the enrolled bill.
-- Efren L. Danao
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