'Cheaper Medicine Act reduced drug prices'

MANILA, Philippines - Liberal Party vice presidential candidate Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II insisted yesterday that the Cheaper Medicine Law made the reduction of drug prices mandatory and provided measures against corruption of the regulatory process.

Roxas said Congress’ decision to reject the lobbying by Iloilo Rep. Ferjenel Biron for a new Drug Price Regulatory Board removed a layer of bureaucracy that, like other agencies involved in market and price regulation, would have been exposed to corruption and political pressure.

He said giving the Department of Health (DOH) and the Office of the President the responsibility to determine what essential drugs must be subjected to price ceilings gave little space, if any, for lobbying from multinational drug firms.

He pointed out that sufficient price regulation safeguards were written into the law to ensure that the DOH and the President do not abuse the powers vested on them.

“The Senate and the House stood firm against the lobbying of Biron for the drug regulatory board because we saw it would make it easier to manipulate drug prices in the name of regulation,” he explained in Filipino.

Roxas said Biron’s concern about bringing down the prices of expensive medicine could all be a show since the congressman’s interest is to put in place a new agency to regulate the drug industry that could be influenced by politicians.

He said that Philippine Pharmawealth Inc., which is owned by Biron and his family, was engaged in supplying cheap but substandard medicine to government agencies as shown by records of the DOH.

Pharmawealth was suspended by the DOH from getting supply contracts with government hospitals after the firm was found guilty of selling 500 ampules of methylergometrine maleate to the Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital in Tagbilaran City, Bohol that when used led to the death of a patient and forced doctors to make four others undergo emergency surgery.

Roxas said that while he was pushing hard for President Arroyo to use her powers to pressure pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices through a list of essential medicine to be placed under the maximum retail price (MRP) provision of the Cheaper Medicine Law, his critics like Biron and his fellow members of the pharmaceutical industry subjected him to an intense black propaganda campaign.

“Under an Aquino-Roxas administration, my first and most important task is to do something to further lower prices of essential medicine,” Roxas said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Loren Legarda, vice presidential bet of the Nacionalista Party, said Roxas is misleading the public about his claims on having principally authored the Cheaper Medicine Law.

Legarda, who arrived yesterday in Davao City, chided Roxas for credit-grabbing when in fact it was Roxas who “proposed amendments in the Senate committee report in such a way that its original intention to ease consumers of the rising cost of medicine was not fulfilled.”

Roxas countered that his rival in the May 10 vice presidential race was only spreading lies about his legislative track record to prop up her sagging pre-election survey ratings.

“My rival started with a lie about me allegedly watering down the cheaper medicine law when in fact it was my rival who wanted the big pharmaceutical companies to be given a role in determining prices of essential medicine,” Roxas said.   – With Edith Regalado