Gloria is okay, but… - DEMAND AND SUPPLY by Boo Chanco

For one thing, she is the constitutional successor. For another, she obviously seems to be a vast improvement over Erap. I have seen her in action in the first APEC meeting in Seattle and at the Senate. She is a hard worker and unlike most economists with her academic credentials, she seems pretty street smart. Her pedigree as the daughter of former President Diosdado Macapagal is an added reassurance.

But something about her or about how she has been recently bothers me. No, it isn't her supposed relationship with the Bong Pineda family of her hometown Lubao. I don't even think it was jueteng per se that did Erap in, so why should it bother me if Gloria turns out to have connections with a jueteng lord too. Anyway, she denies it and that should suffice for now.

What bothers me about her is something else. She seems to want the position so much that she may be promising too much to characters who will do the country no good. I worry that too much of the riff-raff that tarnished the later years of the Ramos presidency are proprietarily hovering around her these days. These are the people we were happy to see go when Erap won the presidency. The thought that they will be back is enough to make me wonder if three more years of Erap would be better.

There is for instance, the one responsible for the sad financial plight of the National Power Corp. who is said to be now aspiring for a higher post in a Gloria administration. Good Heavens! That's the guy who was signing onerous contracts with independent power producers with just months to go in the Ramos presidency. That's the guy who forgot to put up more transmission line capacity to support all those IPPs. And he just might make it in a Gloria take- over.

Then there are the military types, the kind of people responsible for the massive raids on the public treasury in the name of the Clark Centennial constructions. There is that multi-million abandoned spur road leading to the expressway, for example. That's more scandalous than the main site because money was spent in an overpriced contract and no one can use it up to now. What we need to do is to go after these guys in anti-graft court. Will Gloria resurrect them instead?

I also worry about how Gloria quickly shed her academic discipline when she embraced the Oil Exchange proposal. It was the populist thing to do. But at least with Erap, the champion of populist propaganda gimmicks, didn't fall for the oil exchange idea. If Gloria can do that with the oil exchange proposal, has she become more of the politician and less of the economist we now need badly? Could she be expected to champion unpopular but wise economic strategies?

But I guess, it is first things first. Gloria still seems to be the better option at this time. Maybe, after she is in office, she can take the more difficult, less popular statesmanlike approach to issues and people. But then again, with less than three years left in Erap's term that she must fill, she may be unable to help herself from keeping a moist eye on the 2004 election when she can run for a full term for herself.

This country is really in a bind. Maybe, the masa in its collective wisdom, is right when surveys show a pervading feeling that it doesn't matter who is in Malacañang. The country gets screwed anyway.

Retail sales

A reader who calls himself (herself?) potterswheel, e-mailed me his (her?) comments on a previous column.

I read with amusement the rosy analysis of UAP’s Neri about the retail business. Obviously she’s just an economist, so retailers like me can treat her theories as part of the Erap jokes. As you correctly observed, she was referring to another century when Chavit was still playing mah-jong and tong-its with Erap & Atong.

Today, all you have to do is visit any mall and observe the scenery. You’ll find fewer people now than in June or July this year. Position yourself at any entrance/exit doorway and count how many exit mallers carry packages. Bet you lunch the count will be something like – for every 10 well-cooled maller, only one (isa!) bought something. Ayan, that will be the retail picture this season. As for me, I’ll join the queue at the US Embassy for an immigrant visa. Buti pa sa America, walang presidente.

Drug prices

The DOH and the DTI are making much about their initial important of about a million pesos worth of prescription drugs from India. Well, that's really just the beginning. People won't feel the impact of this landmark project until the local branches of those multinationals start bringing down their prices too. This parallel importation of vital prescription drug is a step in the right direction. But it is still nothing more than propaganda fodder for the administration until its ultimate objection of lowering prices is achieved.

In the meantime, here is a comment e-mailed to me by reader David Lim. He suggests another approach to the same problem of bringing the costs of health care down.

I must have missed your original column with respect to high drug prices in the Philippines, however, I found your comments rather interesting when you suggested that "the chamber of which Mr. De los Reyes is an officer, should take more proactive moves to counter this bad image. They must also make it easier for people to buy their products."

Although I agree with you on the former, I doubt if there will be much change with respect to lower drug prices STRUCTURALLY unless the Philippine healthcare system plays an increasing role in delivering health care solutions.

Here's why. The Philippine health care delivery system, which consists of doctors, hospitals, insurers, to name a few, is extremely fragmented with doctors (as a group) accounting for approximately 78 percent of total prescription dispensing. Thus, pharmaceutical companies remain to focus their selling efforts on these physicians.

The trouble is since doctors as a group do not exert any bargaining power with respect to purchasing and delivering prescription drugs to their patients, pharmaceutical companies will continue to pass their high margins to consumers. Now contrast this to what you have in developed countries like the US where health care delivery is evolving towards a small number of large integrated providers such as HMOs who provide end-to-end solutions to their customers (patients), that is from diagnosis to prescription filling.

Because of the concentration of purchasing power by these large providers, they can exert leverage in terms of volume discounts. Unfortunately, apart from company subsidized health benefits, the cost of most HMO and health insurance is still beyond the reach of the average Filipino – only about 10 percent-15 percent of the population can afford to enroll in health insurance plans offered by private indemnity firms and HMOs.

Alive

Reader Chito Santos e-mailed today's joke.

At the end of the funeral service the pall bearers are carrying the casket out. When they accidentally bump into a wall jarring the casket. They hear a faint moan. They open the casket and find that the woman is actually alive.

She lives for 10 more years and then dies. A ceremony is again held at the same place and at the end of the ceremony the pall bearers are again carrying out the casket. As they are walking the husband cries out, "Watch out for the wall!"

(Boo Chanco's e-mail address is [email protected])