Cheaper Medicine Bill: Beware the poison pill

In the media the past two days, signs of intelligent life. That is, after a general dulling of their critical powers — a side effect, apparently, of some cheap medicine.

In the Inquirer today, Neal Cruz at least presented in a fair and dispassionate manner the valid questions raised against the Cheaper Medicines Bill, particularly regarding some provisions that would seem to favor multinational patent holders. Mr. Cruz says:

“It is not unusual for vested interests, when they cannot stop the passage of a bill, to have provisions inserted in the bill to punch loopholes in it. That has happened in the Oil Deregulation Law and in the Epira law that were, like the Cheaper Medicines Bill, intended to break the hold of cartels…”

Mr. Cruz calls it a “booby trap”. I believe, in American legislative tradition, it is called, and quite appropriately in this case, a “poison pill”.

Philstar’s Federico Pascual dug even deeper, pointing to a “well-oiled lobby of the multinational drug firms [that] has been tightening their stranglehold on the market via legislation”.

Pascual asks, for instance, whether Rep. Ferjenel Biron of Iloilo, the bill’s main sponsor, is connected with a pharmaceutical company named Philippine Pharmawealth Inc. or Pharmawelth Laboratories Inc., and whether this connection does not constitute conflict of interest.

Well, Mr. Pascual, the House of Representatives website is quite instructive. Rep. Biron’s profile says:

“Before he joined politics. Rep. Biron was President and C.E.O. of Pharmawealth Laboratories, Inc., the FIRST and largest FILIPINO Multi-Facility Injectable Plant in the country located at the Industrial Zone in San Pablo City, Laguna. He was also the President and C.E.O. of Phil. Pharmawealth Inc., the biggest trading house of human pharmaceutical injections in the Philippines representing 50 foreign manufacturers worldwide. He was also the founder of Ferj’s Pharmacy Drugstore chain in Iloilo City.”

So like Messrs. Cruz and Pascual, you will forgive me if I’m not giving the prospect of lower prices for my arthritis medicine the benefit of the gout. Which is painful, because there is no such thing as reasonable gout.

Wanted: Spam writer

Have you received spam from your congressman lately?

I guess when you’re always lying around pork barrels, you’re bound think of spam. Which is sort of a good thing — I mean, that lawmakers should think that good things are as good when they come in small packages.

They’re usually about some burning national issue, or a raging controversy, the perfect pr vehicle for a congressman or senator who needs to get his name out: the economy, a botched government deal, a suspicious government transaction.

But on slow news days, these congressmen and senators are not exactly averse to scraping the bottom of another kind of barrel. So on your email inbox are served such choice cuts as:

“Solon pushes planting of okra as key to moral regeneration”

Or:

“Wowowee controversy highlights need for constitutional change”

And on slow news days, newspapers aren’t exactly above using this kind of spam as extenders.

So I’ve been feeling quite left behind. I’m helplessly envious of colleagues who know how to cut it (the spam, I mean), and dish them off to newsrooms and to everyone else who owns an email address.

Consider this, then, an employment ad. Send your resume, and a sample spam on the following subject:

“Solon sees need for law to regulate spam coming from solons”

Cheaper Medicine Bill: Pfizer made it?

If I were as suspicious as I suspect I am, I would have suspected that printed somewhere on the House version of the so-called Cheaper Medicines Bill, somewhere on its rather transparent packaging, you’ll find the familiar tagline: “Pfizer made it.”

But since I am not, then I would just wish to respond to the sponsors’ charge that the bill’s passage is being delayed by the “antics” of those who do not intend to join the carefully managed mad rush to have the bill passed, no matter what the cost.

It is not merely the fact that the bill is couched in language as obscure as that of literature on a medicine box that invites suspicion. It is the attempt of the bill to water down existing laws apparently to favor multinational patent holders.

Two proposed provisions jump out of medicine carton: first, the diminution of the government’s right to use patents when required by the public interest as provided under the Intellectual Property Code; and second, the curtailment of the right to use patents for experimental purposes.

In the first case, where the present law authorizes any government agency to make a determination that the use of the patent is essential to public health, nutrition and national security, the bill proposes to restrict that power by making a declaration of a state of national emergency a sine qua non for government use.

In the second case, where the present law grants the use of a patent for experimental use unqualifiedly, the bill proposes to insert the condition that experimental use should not affect the rights of the patent holder.

If the goal is cheaper medicine, why give “aid and comfort” to multinational patent holders?

People more suspicious than I am are even coming up with the conspiracy theory that some constitutionally questionable and downright infirm provisions contained in the bill were written into it to ensure that the law, once passed, will fail judicial scrutiny. These provisions include the creation of a roving commission to monitor, and, in their discretion, control prices of medicines (one wonders why, if the sponsors are confident that “parallel importation” will do the trick, price control is necessary). They also include a provision compelling retailers of medicine to buy and carry products subject of parallel importation on their shelves, which the opposition to the bill rightly characterizes as confiscatory. (The state can, under the power of eminent domain, compel a person to sell his property, but there is no constitutional basis for the state to compel a person to buy property)

So while the sponsors ride the popular wave urging its swift passage, there are those who, risking a lynching by the mob, dare stop and ask the question: Whose interests does the Cheaper Medicine Bill serve?

Viagra guarantees respectable erections, and nothing more. Have some multinational pharmaceutical companies, with the Cheaper Medicine Bill, come up with something that guarantees a monumental screwing?

Why we never say “Gentle Lady” in the House

Remember a few months ago, when there was a monumental debate about whether to use “gentle lady” when referring to a congresswoman?

The consensus, according to this Inquirer report, was that it was never to be used. The reason, according to a congressman was that “gentle” was “superfluous”, since “lady”, according to another, “already indicates gentleness”.

I just stumbled upon what may be the most compelling reason why “gentle lady” should not be used to refer to congresswomen. Gentle Lady is a glider. According to the manufacturer, Carl Goldberg Products Ltd, it is:

“Carl’s quintessential glider design. Wen it comes to economical high–performance R/C soaring, the Lady’s still the champ! This model gives beginners plenty of time to sort things out, yet providing experienced flyers with those extra–long flights. Take her out and you’ll know why so many thousands of modelers have fallen in love with the Gentle Lady.”

So there you are. After Spain, neither the people nor congresswomen want to be reminded of “those extra-long flights”.

Mugged!

I don’t know who manages the House of Representatives website, but I’d like to know who managed to smuggle in this terrible mug of — how do they say it there, “on the floor”? — uhm, “this representation.”

The picture not exactly life-affirming to begin with, the genius cropped my face and pasted it above what looks like a standard-issue funeral barong.  

Is this what I get for not voting for De Venecia?  Do they have to make me look like I’m not fit to lead a “moral revolution”?

I’m thinking of filing a resolution urging the ”august” chamber (even if it’s late December), to conduct an investigation, in aid of legislation, to get to the bottom of the matter. 

I’m thinking the Committee on Games and Amusements should assume jurisdiction.

Philippine governors support H.B. 1607

The League of Provinces of the Philippines unanimously passed a resolution pushing my bill seeking to grant provinces a share in the real property taxes collected by component cities.

That story here.

Predictably, the bill generated opposition from the local opposition, city mayors who apparently don’t feel uncomfortable denying the province a share in their RPT collections, while they continue to vote for provincial elective officials, rely on infrastructure and other support from provinces, and leaving the burden of taxation entirely on the shoulders of the smaller, less financially-capable towns.

House Bill No. 1607 awaits consideration by the House Committee on Local Government chaired by Rep. George P. Arnaiz (2nd District, Negros Oriental).