Saturday, June 16, 2007 Maxey: Amnesia in the House By Ram Maxey Bar None
IT'S ironic that the President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who professes compassion for the poorest of her compatriots, has turned down calls for a special session of Congress to enable lawmakers to pass the pending cheap medicines bill.
Among those who called for the special session were Senators Francis Pangilinan, Rodolfo Biazon, Richard Gordon and Sergio Osmeña. They said there is still time for a convening of a special session before June 30 to act on pending legislation, particularly the cheap medicines bill authored by Senator Manuel Roxas II, which has been approved by the Senate.
The House of Representatives failed to approve its own counterpart bill, although boasting it was a much better, more comprehensive measure compared to the Senate version.
This failure on the part of the House to approve its own version, ostensibly due to the lack of quorum, is seen by observers as a temporary victory of pharmaceutical companies who have been lobbying against any bill that will mean allowing the government to make parallel importation of patented medicines from countries where the prices are cheaper.
Iloilo Representative Ferjenal Biron raps the Senate version as useless, misleading and "giving false hopes to the Filipino people." He did not elaborate, but note that Biron's family is engaged in the pharmaceutical business. It figures. So, who is misleading who?
The outgoing 13th Congress has been an unlucky number for the poor who are clamoring for cheaper medicines. And there is no guarantee that the incoming 14th Congress will be different. The powerful pharmaceutical lobby has the wherewithal to induce amnesia in congressmen who, having been elected/reelected, promptly forget to remember whose interest they are supposed to serve.
