Privatization by vampires

Good or bad, my friend Timmy does not take everything at face value. On one occasion he was told that a beggar on Julio Vargas was actually a scam artist. So he decided to find out for himself by tailing the guy. True enough the guy who was suppose to be handicapped eventually lost his “limp” the minute he turned the corner. In fact the guy quickly lit up a cigarette and chased after a bus to where ever he was headed.

For his efforts, Tim has proven with his own eyes what was for the most time hearsay or even conjecture. He can now say with authority that the guy is a fake and he does.

The purpose of the story is to draw your attention to how we all tend to take other people’s statements as gospel truth especially when it suits or fits our likes or dislikes. Sometimes we swear by what we say not because we saw it ourselves but because we trust the person who said it. Sadly in our society this has become a fault.

The more people we trail the more we discover who are true and who are false.

When a bunch of Congressmen reassured us that the Bureau of Food and Drugs or BFAD would be revitalized and strengthened by law and with funding, I asked why they did not integrate it with the Cheaper Medicines bill in order to insure that all medicines will be screened, tested and monitored?

The three young duds (not dudes) couldn’t give a straight answer and merely said it would be better if the BFAD law were separate and special.

Yesterday someone gave me the possible scenario why the 3 duds could not give me a straight answer. As various Philippine STAR columnists have exposed, the Cheaper Medicines Bill is not about the people’s good but another “Lihis-lation” or demented legislation intended to serve personal or private interests of people in the business of importing and manufacturing and retailing of generic drugs.

What we never touched upon or figured out was why the BFAD was conveniently removed from the scenario. I personally presumed that by taking the BFAD out of the picture, the importation and production would go unrestricted and uncontrolled. Well, there is obviously much more than the eye can see.

By sucking the blood out of the BFAD, the vampires can easily justify the “privatization” of screening and testing of all imported and manufactured medicines in the Philippines.

All it takes is a joint venture agreement between a private sector laboratory — test facility and a government controlled corporation to enlist themselves as an alternative to the BFAD.

Remember the urine tests you pay for to get a license or to be an OFW, or the eye tests to get a driver’s license, or the emissions tests to register your car? All of them were forced upon us by devious merchants and profiteers who simply wanted our money.

I remember when the lobbyists of the car manufacturers tried to hoodwink the DOTC by offering to set up the government’s emissions standard, we cried out foul because they would certainly force all second hand cars off the road. Talk about Trojan horses these guys did not even bother to hide!

So if the latest caper on the BFAD were pulled off, whoever owns the company waiting at the wings gets a captured market, a definite advantage because they will have their own choir singing praises about their imports and products, the competition who is forced to use the services of the “private laboratory” could be discredited and if actual privatization whether partial or in full happens, it would be another guillotine waiting to be used against the branded medicines.

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There is a saying that if you don’t use it, you lose it! Well, some legislators are now discovering that their failure to respond to real issues that concern people are now being acted upon by the people concerned or affected.

If the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has decided to give wise counsel or directions to judges regarding libel cases, it is probably because the law on libel has taken up too much time, too much resources and cause greater harm than the good it was expected to achieve.

For the longest time, learned people have pointed out the cruel and vengeful spirit of our laws on libel, not to mention the many others that still need attention. Making the act a criminal offense already shows that the law is not corrective but sternly punitive.

A lot of people are disturbed by the recent releases and pardons that the government has been issuing for humanitarian reasons as well as to decongest our prisons of aging and frail individuals kept in some of the most violent and inhuman conditions.

But that is our problem. Our laws have often come out as a reaction to unusual events, sensational crimes, or public outcry. In our anger an eye for eye is readily accepted, shared experiences of injury or hurt justify collective injustice expressed in the form of laws.

The petty becomes serious and criminal while the serious and criminal become petty!

But for people like Chief Justice Puno who lives and breathes the reality and results of our laws, it is time to set things straight. It is they who have a real appreciation of the law because it is in their courts where reality meets up with the law and as far as the libel law is concerned the punishment is often far graver and destructive than the offense. On many occasions the law, not the judge, demands punishment that is more about ego and pride than it is about real injury.

No one should suspect the Chief Justice of stealing or usurping the power of legislators. If the legislators can’t be bothered to take their power and their responsibility seriously, then the least they can do is not to call attention to their failure.