How about some transparency from Pfizer?

It came as a very short report buried in the inside pages of The Philippine STAR in the Metro section on page 13 entitled, “Cough syrup recalled from market.” As the report goes, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ordered the recall of a cough syrup from the market to prevent possible health risk to consumers. Apparently this cough syrup is Robitussin DM products by that giant pharmaceutical company Pfizer that apparently and voluntarily recalled its product due to an error in labeling.

As the report by FDA Officer-in-Charge Nicolas Lutero goes, “The products were found to have discrepancies on both primary label and cartoon regarding dosage instructions.” I’m writing this piece because for more than a week now… I have been taking Robitussin because of my cough and colds and it seems… that I only threw away my money taking this drug because I have already consumed two bottles… and a third one waiting to be used and I’m still having my colds. So what’s up Pfizer? What are you telling us?

If you ask me, removing the Robitussin products from the shelves of drugstores is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough. What about the thousands of folks who bought this medicine from all over the country? Are we expected to just stop taking it without any recompense? Mind you, these medicines are not cheap… even if you can buy them over the counter.

Perhaps the FDA and Pfizer ought to be transparent on this issue and tell us more than just giving a report that they took away the unsold Robitussin off the shelves of drugstores all over the country. We expect the FDA to dig deeper into this potentially explosive situation and tell the people the real story why all of the sudden Pfizer removed these medicines from the shelves.

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Whenever there is talk of Charter changes, it always gets my attention, after all, I’m one of the very few Filipinos who believe that this nation needs to look back at the 1987 Constitution, refine it and attune it to the needs of our present situation. From day one… meaning from the time we ratified the 1987 Charter, we already learned that the so-called Cory Constitution wasn’t only kilometric, but as the late Manong Max Soliven used to write, “a Constitution with a martial law hangover.”

Indeed, Sir Max Soliven was supposed to be the 50th person (that’s why there are only 49 people who did the 1987 Charter) chosen by Tita Cory to come up with a new Charter. But we prevailed against his accepting it because as a journalist, we told him that he might end up spending more time defending the Charter especially when the flaws are exposed. And indeed, so many flaws have surfaced and if it is not changed soon… it would hurt our nation. Amongst them are the so-called economic provisions in the Charter.

In my book… what also needs to be changed is the political system, which until now is still highly-centralized… where people from the far-flung areas still have to come to Manila to deal with the national government. What we have is a dysfunctional political system. Just take a good look at our political parties. Forty years ago, no one would have believed that the Liberal Party (LP) would join up with Nacionalista Party (NP) as they were like oil and water. Of course this already happened in the past when the two parties were lumped together with that unlamented umbrella organization called the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), because politicians had no choice during Martial Law. Eventually the opposition came from the UNIDO.

Before Martial Law, there were only two political parties, which had ideologies that were opposed to one another. But times have changed from bad to worse. Today, there are no parties with a real ideology except for the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Someday we will have political parties that are not personality oriented… but parties with a true pro-Filipino ideology that would guide our leaders into political maturity.

If you ask, why do we need a genuine political reform? It is because we have a system that is no longer working for the benefit of the Filipino people… but rather it benefits the political class. If we have a new Charter… we should banish forever the pork barrel and I guarantee you… there will be a few people interested to run for political positions, unlike today where elective positions are handed down from father to son or daughter in order to keep their political power forever… and ever and ever!

It’s been 25 years since we’ve had our Constitution and it was ratified at a time when computers were still unaffordable to the ordinary people and cellphones haven’t yet been invented. So okay, House Speaker Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte and Senate Pres. Juan Ponce Enrile (JPE) are discussing “Cha-cha” once more. But how serious are they? Let’s get real guys… how could we even look at the possibility of Charter changes if President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III is foursquare against it? Cha-cha is but a dream!

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