You have jobs; don't ask for pay - Gotcha

Countless people out there have no jobs, no wages. You're lucky you have a job, you have one of the two, so don't ask for wages.

That, a union leader exaggerates, might well be Joseph Estrada's Labor Day message today. Recalling how the President lectured labor leaders last year, the unionist says they expect another monologue on why they should cooperate with businessmen who are going through rough economic tides. So they decided to turn down this year's invitation to a Malacanang meeting.

By rote each year on May 1, organized labor cries for a raise. Today should be no different, considering increases in basic commodities' costs because of fuel price rises and peso dips. Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma anticipated the agitation, and doused cold water on it days ago by saying another wage increase within 12 months is out of the question. And that's another reason for labor leaders to snub today's meeting.

But unionists are pressing not only for another raise. They want job security along with it. Figures show that another 77,000 workers lost their jobs last year from business closures and down-sizing. While it's less than 1998's retrenchment total of 95,000 workers, it's not reassuring. Despite impassioned speeches during the budget debates about the need to protect workers from harsh effects of globalization, government did not allocate a single centavo for programs for those it expected to be laid off this year.

LAMP senators had denounced the Ramos administration for railroading the ratification of the World Trade Organization treaty without laying down safety nets for anticipated upheavals in certain business lines. But that happened in 1996. Estrada's LAMP has been in power since 1998; it still has not laid down the desired safety nets.

And so today, workers are not only losing their jobs by the tens of thousands. More than four million more have found no jobs at all ever since they reached so-called productive age and entered the labor force.

Katipunan de los Reyes has been with the pharmaceutical industry since 1955. He was seven-term president of the Drug Association of the Philippines, now called the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines. He founded USA-Generics Pharma Inc. a year Congress passed the Generic Drugs Act in 1998, and was general manager of Sandoz Philippines Inc. He is presently vice president of the Chamber of Filipino Drug Manufacturers and Distributors.

With that intro, I give space to De los Reyes' rejoinder to my series on high costs of medicines:

"Parallel imports from India. I believe the rationale for this is to put pressure to lower prices of the same brands of the same multinational companies, but sold here 15-20 times higher. It is not necessarily to supply all our needs because the P500 million stated in your column is but a drop in the bucket. There are generic and brand counterparts by Filipino firms which are priced lower than planned imports from India.

"Counterfeit medicines. My estimate is about P7 billion annually -- equivalent to about 15 percent of 1999 pharmaceutical retail sales. The Bureau of Food and Drugs has been and is apprehending outlets caught selling fake medicines. Generic medicines are not counterfeited because they are not popular and constitute a very small market. BFAD collection of fake products can attest to this. Only popular brands are counterfeited. It is reasonable to conclude that thousands of Filipinos have died or spent more on counterfeit products which, at best, are of inferior quality. Consumers should know what these commonly counterfeited products are for their protection.

"High cost of medicines. This is not entirely correct. The current situation may be illustrated thus: multinational products (brands), 100 points; Filipino counterparts (brands), 70 points; generic counterparts, 40-60 points. Prices from India can be matched by Filipino counterpart products of better quality.

"How Filipinos can have low-priced high-quality medicines. Health care professionals should give the patient a choice of products he can afford. They should educate and encourage him to ask how much the price of the drug being prescribed is, and if beyond his means, not to be shy to ask for a lower-priced counterpart (branded or generic). This way a prescription for popular brands costing 100 points may be changed by the MD with a counterpart costing from 40-70 points. Quality is no longer an issue because BFAD is doing its job excellently."

YOUR BODY. U.S. federal regulators have cleared for marketing a new drug for treating and preventing postmenopausal osteoporosis, even the glucocorticoid-induced type. For more on tests on Actonel, made and distributed by Procter & Gamble Co. and Aventis Pharmaceuticals, visit cnn.com/health.

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