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By Efren L. Danao, Senior
Reporter
A multinational drug company
tried to bribe the government into preventing the enforcement of the
Quality Affordable Medicine Law, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile
charged on Monday.
Enrile made the accusation after
Reiner Gloor, the executive director of the Pharmaceutical and
Healthcare Association of the Philippines, said that Pfizer
Philippines offered to give the Department of Health (DOH) five
million discount cards for its products, principally Norvasc, the
best-selling maintenance medicine for those with hypertension.
Gloor told the Quality Affordable
Medicine Oversight Committee jointly headed by Sen. Manuel Roxas 2nd
and Rep. Antonio Alvarez of Palawan that the offer was made before
the Health department announced the proposed maximum retail price (MRP)
of 22 essential medicines consisting of drugs to treat hypertension,
diabetes, asthma and cancer, as well as antibiotics. He said that
the department rejected the offer.
Pfizer was absent at the hearing,
along with Cabinet members and other executive officials called to
shed light on a meeting between President Gloria Arroyo and drug
companies. Gloor was present in that meeting with President Arroyo
and in an earlier meeting with Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.
Enrile said that the government
was correct in rejecting Pfizer’s offer “because it was
tantamount to a bribe.” He added that the offer sought to impede
the enforcement of the law, which mandates the pegging of MRP on
essential medicines.
“To offer that while there is
discussion in the implementation of the law is a delicate matter. As
a lawyer, I will say that that was a bribe,” Enrile said.
He rejected the explanation of
Gloor that the offer might have been made in the spirit of
competition because it would force other drug companies to give
similar discounts.
“If that is the intention, why
did Pfizer select five million and why not the whole mass of the 90
million Filipinos?” he asked.
Discount cards
He said that if Pfizer can afford
to give five million discount cards, whose value can run up to P100
million, how come it could not afford to lower the prices of its
products being marketed in the country.
“If the decrease in prices is
across the board, I would accept that as in the spirit of
competition,” Enrile added.
Gloor said that at the Malacañang
meeting on July 8, President Arroyo gave drug companies ten days, or
until July 18, to voluntarily lower their prices by 50 percent or
she would sign the executive order setting the MRP on 22 essential
medicines.
Trade Secretary Peter Favila also
on Monday said that the government is giving pharmaceutical
companies until this weekend to implement price cuts of up to 50
percent on 22 of the most commonly used medicines by Filipinos,
under the MRP provision, or else face sanctions.
He added that as he now has
authority over the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), he can
cancel the registration of pharmaceutical firms that will not
comply.
The SEC has been transferred to
the supervision of the Trade department from the Department of
Finance under Executive Order 800 signed by the President in May.
‘Deliberate’ absence
Roxas decried the absence of
Cabinet members at the hearing, which was meant to oversee the
implementation of the law. He described their absence as
“deliberate” because they had already confirmed their
attendance. The hearing was delayed for an hour while the
legislators waited for the Cabinet members. Roxas later received a
letter from Ermita, saying that those invited did not have time to
prepare adequately because of the “delayed invitation.”
Roxas said that the President and
her Cabinet members had time to meet with multinational drug
companies but not with lawmakers wanting to know how the law was
being implemented.
He questioned why Mrs. Arroyo had
not yet signed the MRP, which was submitted to Malacañang by Duque
on June 10, or more than a month ago.
“Even if she will not meet with
President Obama, if she will only sign the EO, the entire nation
will applaud her,” Roxas said.
He added that the executive
should not be vexed at his harping on the full implementation of the
law because he is not the issue but the lives of ailing Filipinos
who could barely afford medicines.
Roxas said that the President
need not issue the Executive Order on MRP if drug companies
voluntarily reduce the prices of their essential medicines by 50
percent.
“The MRP is like hammer to
force prices down. If the drug companies will lower their prices,
then the hammer is no longer needed,” he added.
As proposed by Duque, among anti-hypertensives,
amlodipine 5mg, which is currently priced at P44.50 each, will have
an MRP of P22.50; Telmisaritan 40 mg, priced at P50.48, will have an
MRP of P25; and Irbesartan 150 mg, P48.75, will have an MRP of
P24.38.
Atorvastatin 10 mg, an
anti-cholesterol drug that sells at P62.50 each, has an MRP of
P31.25, while Gliciazide 80 mg, and anti-diabetic medicine that
sells for P14.75 each, has an MRP of P7.35.
Augmentin 625 mg tablet, an
anti-biotic that currently costs P92.70 each, has an MRP of P46.35.
Roxas said that the MRP for the
22 essential medicines is just the beginning and that the law seeks
to cover more medicines.
“But we are still starting and
it seems we are already having trouble!” he added.
Malacañang saw Pfizer
Philippines’ alleged offer of five million discount cards worth
P100 million not as a bribe attempt to delay the implementation of
the cheaper medicine law but a good proposal.
Deputy presidential spokesman
Gary Olivar also on Monday said that if the issuance of discount
cards was a form of voluntary compliance by Pfizer and could reduce
the prices of medicines significantly, then the government should
consider accepting the offer.
Price control
“Any form of price control
alarms the business sector and the President knows it. So she is
balancing it. If we can get it voluntarily, let us give them
[companies] a chance to do it voluntarily. Now if Pfizer said,
‘OK, we will release discount cards,’ let us see. If Secretary
Duque said that it was not acceptable, maybe he had good reasons [to
say so],” Olivar added. Duque is Health chief Francisco Duque 3rd.
What is important, according to
the Malacañang spokesman, is that the President wants to inform
drug manufacturers that they should set good corporate precedence.
“So when there are calls to
them to reduce their prices, she [Mrs. Arroyo] hopes that they will
respond,” Olivar said, adding that it is up to Duque to decide on
the drug companies’ proposals. “He’s our point man when it
comes to medical issues.”
The President, Duque, Executive
Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Trade Secretary Peter Favila and Budget
Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. did not attend the Senate hearing on
her alleged secret meeting with multinational pharmaceutical firms
last week.
Roxas earlier said that he
learned that Mrs. Arroyo agreed not to impose the MRP if the drug
firms would bring their prices down. He accused the President of
compromising public interest by meeting with giant companies
regarding the issue. Roxas said that Mrs. Arroyo should have signed
the cheaper medicines law soon after it was approved by Congress.
Olivar said that the
President’s commitment to reducing the prices of medicines is well
proven.
“It goes back to the time when
Senator Roxas was not yet a senator. Because you know we have
thousands of Botika ng Bayan selling cheap medicines to the poor
people early on in her administration. So when it comes to cheap
drugs, Senator Roxas shouldn’t think that he is doing better than
the President,” he added.
Duque also on Monday again
dismissed allegations that the government’s collusion with
pharmaceutical firms delayed implementation of the Executive Order
on the MRP.
The allegations are “a mere
figment of the imagination. Our meetings with pharmaceutical firms
have been very transparent. These advisory council meetings were
also attended by non-government organizations and other concerned
parties,” he explained.
Duque said that by Saturday, July
18, the pharmaceutical firms will submit to the Health department a
list of medicines and their new selling prices based on the
recommendation that their prices must be reduced by 50 percent or
more.
Palace clearance
According to him, they did not
attend Monday’s bicameral inquiry into the controversy because
they were not able to get a clearance from Malacañang.
“Before attending any inquiry,
we should clear it first with the Office of the Executive Secretary.
We were not able to get that clearance,” Duque said.
“We were told by Secretary
Ermita not to attend because the invitation from the Senate came too
late. It was only received last Friday, July 10,” he added.
“We have to know early if they
want to invite us because we have to prepare our data and supporting
documents, especially since there is an issue of alleged bribery and
collusion with multinational pharmaceutical firms,” Duque said.
--Angelo S. Samonte, Rommel C. Lontayao And Ben Arnold O. De Vera
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