Life and deaths

These past few days have been tragic as we heard and saw the news about an estimated 200,000  people who perished, many of them reportedly still missing, after a killer cyclone hit Myanmar more than two weeks ago. An earthquake of magnitude 8 shook last week the mountainous terrains of Sichuan in Chengdu province where about 70,000 Chinese people were recorded so far as either killed or missing. 

The extent of casualties and destruction of lives and property wrought by these two deadly natural calamities — the cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China — were overshadowed by two man-made tragedies that took place in our country. These were the two massacres that both happened in Laguna one after the other. The first was the massacre of eight employees and a depositor in the Rizal Commercial and Banking Corp. (RCBC) branch in Cabuyao on  May 16. Two days later, an indiscriminate vendetta killing resulted to the death of eight more people, five of whom were children in Calamba, Laguna.

These heinous crimes have predictably led again to renewed calls for the restoration of capital punishment after Congress earlier repealed the Death Penalty Law in our country’s justice system. Naturally, pro-life advocates are up in arms against the re-imposition of the death penalty. Our lawmakers have the penchant to be theatric in coming up with knee-jerk reactions that earn them media mileage but do not provide the solution to the problem at hand.

But before starting renewed debates about restoring the Death Penalty Law that calls for life-for-a-life policy that the State must enforce, the more urgent thing that President Arroyo must attend to is to sign into law the Cheaper Medicines Act that would help support life and prevent unnecessary deaths if only people who are sick, or are injured get the needed medicines to keep them alive and stay healthy.

The Senate and the House of Representatives have already approved the consolidated version of the proposed law entitled: “Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008”. This is just awaiting the signature of the President. I don’t think the printing of the enrolled copy of the Cheaper Medicines Act would take that long. What’s keeping her from signing this into law?

As I’ve said in my previous columns, if our lawmakers would really want to ensure the availability of cheaper medicines, they should simply amend the law that raised to 12 percent the value added tax (VAT) that took away more than half of the 20 percent discount being given to our senior citizens who are sickly or prone to sickness. Life-saving and life-extending drugs and medicines should, in fact, be exempted from VAT. The impact of such VAT exemption, for sure, would result to cheaper priced prescription drugs and medicines.

Sen. Mar Roxas II, principal author of this measure believes that once enforced, such law could help ensure the availability of affordable medicines by requiring drug outlets to carry a variety of brands for each drug — including those sourced from “parallel importation” — to give consumers wider choices of medicines at cheaper prices.

I remembered this yet unsigned Cheaper Medicines law when former Secretary Roberto “Obet” Pagdanganan returned to our regular breakfast gathering at the Tuesday Club in EDSA Shangri-La in Pasig City. Obet used to be the chief implementor of the Cheaper Medicines program of the Arroyo administration which he did while he was president of the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC). The PITC is one of the government corporations under the Department of Trade and Industry  through which the parallel importation of drugs and medicines is being implemented by the government. Obet gave up this post when he ran in his return bid to become governor again of Bulacan during the May 2007 elections. Unfortunately, he lost.

We teased Obet that he could now be appointed again with the lapse of the one-year ban against losing candidates. Although out of government service, I learned from Obet that he has continued his active advocacy for cheaper medicines even in his capacity as a private citizen. He joined the Medicine Transparency Alliance (META) where he is the vice chairman of former Health Secretary Alfredo “Quasi” Romualdez.

The META is a World Health Organization (WHO) partner that Obet and Quasi formed here in the Philippines and has five other countries that joined this movement to promote the monitoring of medicine prices in different countries to help bring about more affordable prices of medicines. Obet heads his own non-government organization called Philippine Health Watch Inc. where he pursued his advocacy to make drugs and medicines more accessible to the needy  at the most affordable prices.

Actually, Obet pointed out that the government could effectively bring about more affordable medicines if only the Price Act of 1981 is strictly enforced. Once the Cheaper Medicines Act is signed into law, Obet suggested that the implementing rules and regulations should include the strict enforcement of the Price Act of 1981 that requires prior notice to the DOH of any increase in the price of any medicines and drugs.

Obet also reminded the President about the Universal Health Insurance Act of 1995 which Mrs. Arroyo co-authored while she was still a Senator. This law has a 15-year target to ensure 100 percent coverage of health insurance of all Filipinos that ends in  2010. It would be a “legacy’ that President Arroyo could leave behind for her administration, Obet cited, because it was during her administration that Philippine Health Insurance cards got the widest distribution since she started in January 2001. 

While active in these pro-life activities, Obet himself is a victim of two tragic deaths in his family. Less than a year after he lost his son to a fatal vehicular accident, Obet is again in mourning after his brother, former Calumpit mayor Ramon “Monching” Pagdanganan was gunned down by suspected professional assassins on May 4 while attending a town fiesta. Obet has taken up the cause of justice for his slain brother that kept him also busy these days.

Speaking about celebration of life, Myther Buñag asked me to announce his birthday tomorrow. Cheers!