Mercury Drug vs. Rose Pharmacy

For every action, there is an equal opposite reaction. While I learned this law, decades ago, from my eminent high school Physics teacher, Mr. Teodoro Kee, it also finds application in our social contacts. The very day we were shabbily treated by the heartless personnel of Mercury Drug, at its outlets in Ayala and IT Park, we had a most pleasant experience at its competing establishment, Rose Pharmacy. I would like to refer to our traumatic experience at Mercury Drug as one action and the amiable event we had at Rose Pharmacy as the opposite reaction. If we suffered hell at the former, we enjoyed heaven at the latter.

Here is how it took place. After we rushed out of Mercury Drug feeling tremendously discriminated against, we jumped into our car looking for a pharmacy that could sell us the medicine we needed. Since it was our conclusion that Mercury Drug did not want to sell to us because we asked for the legally mandated senior citizen’s discount, our first directive to the driver was to bring us to any drug store as long as it was not Mercury Drug. Anyway, we decided and so we were ready to buy the prescribed medicine at whatever price tag it carried with or without the discount benefit.

Few minutes later, we stopped at the Rose Pharmacy along Gov. M. Cuenco Avenue. I could not explain why we felt comfortable when we disembarked. It could be because we decided not to bring up the topic of our being senior citizens and therefore we did not have to do any explaining.

Indeed, when we entered Rose Pharmacy, the ambience was different. While we did not know anyone there, we noticed that all of the employees there were seemingly warm and friendly. How privileged were we treated when I heard a gentle voice of a woman saying “senior citizens”. She did not sound derisive at all. In her tone was an advisory to someone to attend us. It was then that I realized that I was still holding the senior citizen’s ID of my lovely lady. Then, a personable young gentleman stepped forward and politely asked us not anymore to fall into the line of waiting customers. He offered to serve our needs.

The contrast between Mercury Drug and Rose Pharmacy became even more defined. When we told this gentleman at Rose Pharmacy what we needed and showed to him our prescription, he did not shoot the kind of searching questions we were subjected to at Mercury Drug.

This gentleman worker of Rose Pharmacy did not cross-examine us on the details on the prescription. In my previous column, I mentioned about the absence of the generic name. Our doctor did not write it on our prescription. Maybe it did not matter to him. But, not Ms. Pepito of Mercury Drug. She made a big issue out of it such that she said she could not sell to us the medicine unless we would not seek the senior citizen’s discount!

No, this guy of Rose Pharmacy did not query us for the PTR of the doctor who issued our prescription. He was not minded to bring out such a minute detail as if to question the integrity of our doctor who is among the most respected professionals hereabout. In my other write up, I mentioned that Ms. Otadoy of Mercury Drug refused to sell us the medicine simply because our prescription did not reflect the doctor’s professional tax receipt. I knew that such meticulous attention to such detail would not have been asked if we did not claim the senior citizen’s discount.

Finally, when the purchase and sale deal was completed, we found out that the tag price of that particular medicine we bought at Rose Pharmacy was a lot lower than what was indicated at Mercury Drug. In the midst of the world economic meltdown, the price difference was so huge it mattered.

Come to think of it. Every time my aunt Inday Justiniana, a retired government employee from Bohol, visits us here in Cebu and shops for her maintenance dosage, she insists on Rose Pharmacy. Now I know why. .

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