Results rather than regret

Yes, I will say it again: All hail (Esperanza) Cabral!

This is a personal stand and a voluntary endorsement.

One government official and cabinet member who deserves all our support is DOH Secretary Esperanza Cabral. In spite of the concerted, orchestrated and well-funded attempts to discredit or malign Secretary Cabral, the undeniable fact is that she is doing the right things and doing them with political will!

I may not agree with the good Secretary on all her policies, but the fact that she chooses to act on ALL health concerns and not just the politically correct ones, earns her our full support both in media as much as it should with the public.

After reaping the whirlwind of the Catholic Church when Cabral fearlessly supported the Anti-AIDS campaign of the DOH by including the promotion of condoms, the DOH Secretary has move in on cigarette companies to enforce their compliance with the law that requires the printing of graphic images of diseases related to smoking.

Given the fact that the incoming President has an addiction to tobacco, and that certain members of Congress are acting like lobbyists for the tobacco industry and the money power of cigarette manufacturers, one would imagine that a lesser man or woman would probably sidestep the issue.

To her credit, Esperanza Cabral and the people of the DOH have gone head-on to enforce policies that will safeguard the health of unsuspecting Filipinos who are nothing more than customers for the tobacco industry but will ultimately become diseased and burden of the state as well as a great loss to their families. 

While the tobacco industry and their lobbyists are fighting an unseen war, the nutritional supplements industry is openly waging battles with Secretary Cabral.

At the moment, manufacturers of “herbal” or “nutritional” supplements are trying their best to bring down Cabral, after the no-nonsense official enforced the recommendations of DOH experts that the notice: “No approved therapeutic claims”, be written in Tagalog.

Simple common sense tells us that it’s a very valid move since the great majority of “supplementary” products are “Tagalog” speakers. The move is designed to spell out “No approved therapeutic claims” and translate it into Tagalog. The result: Hindi Gamot At Hindi Dapat Gamiting Panggamot sa Anumang Uri ng Sakit”.

Even when written in English: This product is not a medicine and should not be used as medicine for the treatment of any disease. No matter how you cut it, the truth hurts but it’s the truth.

The nutritional supplements industry has hid behind this gray area or veil that they are not selling medicines. However they have tried to enhance, promote, project or even outrightly lie by saying that certain products when used continuously will “help” in the “control”, “reduction”, or management of certain major diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, arthritis etc.

It is interesting to note that Cabral’s enemies in the supplements industry have decided to lodge their complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman instead of the Regional Trial Court.

Maybe, it’s their way of avoiding or preventing the DOH and Secretary Cabral from having an opportunity to raise the question of “therapeutic claims” in a court of law.

Since the supplements industry has drawn first blood, by filing a complaint against Secretary Cabral, maybe she should return the favor by taking all the points of contention to court, to the KBP, to the Department of Trade and to the retailers associations. Are these organizations simply interested in making profits through marketing and advertising or are they also concerned with the interests and the well being of the Filipino public?

The Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas is one organization whose members have continuously collected profits but never questioned the truth in advertising and ethical conduct of their program hosts and shows about products with “no therapeutic claims”. What say and what do, ye of the KBP?

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While on the topic of recognizing people doing good, soon to be President “Noy” should try to ask other people about “the children of a lesser god” or folks who have tried their best to do the best they can in their “government posting”.

Media has already talked about thousands of jobs to be left vacant when the Arroyo administration leaves Malacanang. The last thing that President “Noy” wants is to create a desert of vacancies or a bureaucracy of incompetent appointees.

Some of the lesser personalities I have seen trying to make a difference are people like Assistant Secretary Bert Suansing, who was played like a yoyo between the LTO and the LTFRB and then back to the LTO. To this day, I personally know that Suansing is trying to cut the red tape, the fat and the rats out of the LTO.

Unless, the “Noy” administration can come up with an even better person, they should give Suansing a chance to show why he should stay at the LTO.

Another person we sincerely pray gets to keep his job is PDEA Director Dionisio Santiago as well as his crew. For someone who was not expected to shine outside the force, Santiago managed to perform well running the state penitentiary and now the PDEA. Given the cloud of doubt about narco-politics making billion peso donations to political parties, replacing Santiago and his crew will simply increase the doubt and the suspicion.

Someone who only recently filled big shoes is NAIA General Manager Melvin Matibag. In the very weeks or months that he took over, Matibag has succeeded in inviting and convincing business as well as media regarding the efforts they are making to upgrade and improve the NAIA and MIA complex.

These are only a handful of men and one woman I can speak of. But I am certain that there are more remnants of the Arroyo administration that work for the people not for the politics.

Results will be better than regrets.