Roxas urged to pull out 'misleading' ads on cheaper medicine

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Mar Roxas should apologize to the Filipinos and pull out the “misleading and untruthful” advertisements that portrayed him as the father of the cheaper medicine law, two government officials said yesterday.

“He (Roxas) should pull out his misleading and lying ads. He should also say sorry for what he did. This guy from Capiz is a snatcher, he snatches the credit from us again,” Iloilo Vice Gov. Rolex Suplico, original author of the Cheaper Medicine Law, told The STAR.

Suplico, a former congressman, and incumbent Iloilo Rep. Ferjenel Biron condemned what they deemed as a “credit-grabbing scheme” of Roxas, the vice presidential candidate of the Liberal Party.

Biron, a doctor, chided Roxas who he said was even instrumental in “categorically blocking” the creation of the seven-man Drug Price Regulatory Board that could have brought down the prices of medicine by as much as 80 percent.

“He (Roxas) lied because he claims something that he even opposed vigorously in all our four bicameral conference committee meetings. He didn’t want any form of regulation. All he wanted was parallel importation,” Biron said.

Roxas, who was then eyeing the presidency until he gave way to Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III as LP standard-bearer, wanted a deregulated industry wherein free market forces would determine the price of medicine.

Suplico said Roxas, a former trade secretary of deposed President Joseph Estrada and in the initial stage of the Arroyo administration, “was trying to soften the blows for the pharmaceuticals or multinationals.”

“Nine years ago, these multinationals even offered a measly P1-billion lobby money of the P100-billion industry,” Suplico disclosed, in reference to the alleged bribe offer during the time of former Health secretary Alberto Romualdez, a member of Estrada’s Cabinet.

Biron, under whose term the bill was passed, also brought documents to show the difference between the House version and the Senate version of the law, which, according to Suplico, was “castrated” by Roxas himself.

“He killed the heart and soul of the bill I authored. He castrated it. How can he now say that he was the author of the cheaper medicine law? All he wanted was an amendment to the intellectual property law,” Suplico said.

If only Roxas acceded to their bill, the exorbitant prices of drugs could have been down by as much as 80 to 90 percent, because a multi-sectoral drug price regulatory board would have carried out uniform, reasonable rates for all types of medicine.

The board would have included the health secretary, the trade secretary, the Food and Drug Administration (formerly BFAD), a representative from a consumer group, from PhilHealth, faculty from health and science and one from academe.