|
Angelo S. Samonte and Jomar Canlas, Reporters
President Gloria Arroyo signed on Monday an executive order that
would impose a mandatory 50-percent decrease in the prices of five
essential medicines after drug companies refused the voluntary
reduction of their prices.
The mandatory price reduction on five widely
sold drugs will take effect on August 15.
The government has imposed the ceiling on the
anti-hypertensive amlodipine (including its S-isomer and all salt
form); the anti-cholesterol atorvastatin; the antibiotic/
antibacterial azithromycin (and all its salt form); and the anti-neoplastics/anti-cancer
cytarabine and doxorubicin (and all its salt form).
The move is good news for millions of Filipinos
as many lifesaving medicines are considered too expensive for a
country where more than 30 percent of the population live on less
than 85 cents a day.
But government moves to put a limit a number of
other treatments were thwarted by some leading companies that
threatened to pull out of the country unless Manila agreed the
voluntary reductions.
Arroyo said she imposed the controls after
consultations with the pharmaceutical companies, including a number
of major international makers.
The drug companies voluntarily lowered the
prices for only five essential medicines compelling the President to
issue an order on the 17 essential drugs.
She said the firms “voluntarily undertook”
to reduce by at least 50 percent the prices of 16 widely used drugs
and by 10 percent to 50 percent the cost of 22 others by August 15.
The President issued the Executive Order 821
before she delivered her State of the Nation Address (SONA) under
the so-called cheaper medicines law giving her power to impose the
maximum retail price on selected essential medicines on the
recommendation of the Health secretary.
Malacañang also said that it is open for
amendment to the Cheaper Medicines Law once it is carried out to
made medicines affordable to the people through further revisions of
the law.
Former Rep. Rolex Suplico of Iloilo, he said
that President Arroyo was only telling the truth when she lambasted
Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas 2nd during her SONA on Monday for
castrating the Cheaper Medicines Act.
Roxas is the primary author of the Universally
Accessible, Quality and Cheaper Medicines law.
“Sen. Roxas killed the Cheaper Medicines Act
by surgically removing the mandatory drug price regulation. [He
should help facilitate its amendment],” said Suplico, currently
the vice governor of Iloilo.
Suplico was the original author of the law that
pushed for the stronger automatic price regulation that Roxas
opposed.
Rep. Ferjenel Biron of Iloilo, one of the
principal authors that endorsed automatic price regulation, said
that had it not been for Roxas’ vehement opposition to automatic
price regulation, the reduction of the prices of 1,600 medicines
would have been implemented earlier.
Biron stressed that Roxas only advocated the
parallel importation of medicines instead of passing a measure that
would directly bring down the prices of drugs.
But Rep. Ruffy Biazon of Muntinlupa City, an
ally of Roxas under the Liberal Party, said President Arroyo should
have vetoed the measure a long time ago instead of blaming Roxas.
“The bottom line is [Roxas version of the law
was passed,” he said, but added it is better to amend the law than
to blame one another.
For his part, Roxas said he is heartened by the
President’s tirades against him as it made his opposition to her
government’s bad policies and practices stand out, his only real
concern is to see that cheap medicines reach the market.
Roxas said President Arroyo has no one to blame
if she considers the Cheaper Medicines Law the “weaker” version
of what it should be. “[If that was not the version that she
wanted], why did she not veto it?,” he asked.
-- With AFP
|
