GMA bats for cheaper drugs

President Arroyo stressed yesterday the government’s firm commitment to bring the prices of medicines to levels that are more accessible to the majority of the people, particularly the poor.

The President emphasized her administration’s commitment to give the masses access to lower-priced medicines in the wake of a move by large pharmaceutical companies in the country to obtain a court injunction against the importation of less expensive drugs from abroad.

In a radio interview, the President reiterated her statement to fund managers and investors from Europe, the United States and Asia during a teleconference last week that "our immediate goal is to be able to give ordinary Filipinos access to the medicines they need at affordable prices."

In a separate radio interview, Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel "Mar" Roxas II revealed that large pharmaceutical companies have gone to court to erect barriers against the Arroyo administration’s program to bring the prices of basic goods and medicines down.

Roxas cited the example of a prescription drug for hypertension which is manufactured here and sold at P20 a tablet. This same drug, manufactured in India by the same pharmaceutical giant, was imported under the government’s "Presyong Tama" parallel import program and is now being sold for only P4.65 per tablet.

In the case of liquefied petroleum gas, Roxas said the Department of Trade and Industry, in cooperation with the Department of Energy, will conduct spot checks of the contents of LPG tanks in consumer outlets to find out if they carry the right amount of cooking gas.

Roxas said spot-checking and random sampling will be conducted in the wake of the growing complaints of short-selling from consumers who claimed their cooking gas didn’t last as long as it used to.