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.
4 responses so far ↓
Boy Mejorada // December 20, 2007 at 8:24 am |
Indeed, I’m wondering why such an obvious question about conflict of interest was never exhaustively discussed. Will this bill, if enacted into law, benefit the business of Biron? Were has delicadeza gone?
pablojohn // December 20, 2007 at 9:01 am |
I think the question got buried somewhere in the populist packaging of the Cheaper Medicines Bill. When you have something that raises the hopes of people about something that is, without question, good (e.g., “cheaper medicine), the deeper questions tend to be glossed over. That should have been the job of media.
viking // December 24, 2007 at 9:09 am |
How I wish it wasn’t Neal Cruz, that paid hack who used to lick Imelda’s ass when he was still with the Daily Express, you quoted as having some sign of intelligent life. Well anyway, we have to be objective and just take the argument on its face regardless of the fungus on it.
pablojohn // December 24, 2007 at 4:48 pm |
I rest my case. When your favorite pundits aren’t seeing, or, seeing, not saying, anything, you begin to wonder.