Thursday, May 01, 2008 Arroyo can’t sign cheaper medicines bill on Labor Day
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Tuesday night said she will not be able to sign the cheaper medicines bill into law on Thursday, in time for the Labor Day celebration.
Arroyo had wanted the bills on cheaper medicines and the tax exemption for minimum wage earners passed by Congress on or before May 1. Only the Affordable Quality Medicines Bill has been ratified by Congress but it came too late for signing.
"Yes, thank God. Thank you, Dear Lord," she said when asked to comment on the bill's ratification by Congress last Tuesday.
Arroyo was at the mansion of Camiguin Governor Jesus Jurdin Romualdo Tuesday night after the ferry carrying her and her Cabinet docked at Mambajao Port.
Asked whether she was happy with the version that was passed, the President said she does not know the version that came out but was "very happy to hear that it was ratified."
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, a former congressman of Batangas, said there is "no such thing as a watered down bill" because it is part of the congressional deliberations on a bill to have amendments.
Ermita also said the President was expected to sign the executive order on the 10 percent wage increase of government employees starting July 1 Wednesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Speaker Prospero Nograles said the Cheaper Medicines Act of 2008 would bring down the prices of medicines in a hundred days after its enactment into law.
“In the next 100 days, expect to lower the prices medicines,” he said.
Representatives Ronaldo Zamora of San Juan, Satur Ocampo and Teodoro Casiño of Bayan Muna party-list group and Rodolfo Plaza of Agusan del Sur also raised the same concern when the plenary ratified the measure. (JMR/WV/Sunnex)
