Can it live up to its promise?

Man at the Market

Jesse E.L. Bacon II

05/02/2008

The bicameral Congress finally passed into law the “Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008,” a law that promises to drastically bring down the exorbitant prices of medicines in the country, after months of painstaking effort by its principal authors.

The Senate version with Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II as author was the final measure that was adopted by both Chambers after the House proponents of the counterpart version agreed to drop their contentious provisions such as the one mandating medical practitioners to prescribe generics only medicines. The other contentious provision that the House proponents eventually agreed to drop was the provision creating a price regulatory board.

The unwavering stance of the House authors of the measure to keep the two contentious provisions almost threatened to derail the passage of the bill into law. At one point, the House contingent in the bicameral conference committee, the body referred to as the third Congress, that is formed to reconcile conflicting versions of any legislative measure from both Chambers, even threatened not to pass the measure without the two contentious provisions.

But fate mysteriously intervened. The House contingent softened and agreed to drop the “generics only” and the “price regulatory board” provisions. As of this writing, Mrs. Arroyo was slated to sign into law the cheap medicines bill as one of her administration’s non-wage gifts to the working class during yesterday’s observance of the of international labor day.

A good number of our countrymen, however, expressed pessimism that the new law could ever bring down the prices of medicines in the country without the two contentious provisions. They believe that by requiring doctors to prescribe generics only medicines, and a price regulatory board are the only means by which we can effectively control the surge in prices of medicines.

But many of our countrymen are of the belief also that the new law can bring down the prices of medicines without the two provisions. This columnist agrees with this. The existence of a price regulatory board is not an assurance that it can bring down the prices of medicines.

The Energy Regulatory Commission is a dismal failure in controlling the surge in the prices of petroleum products in the country. It also failed to check on the skyrocketing of electricity cost which is now touted as one of the highest, if not the highest, in the region. The existence of a price regulatory board is not, will never and can never be an assurance of low prices or lower costs of products and services.

What the new law hopes to achieve is give us free access to cheaper generics medicines produced by other countries of our traditional sources such as the United States and Europe. We can now directly import generics medicines from countries such as India that supplies cheap generics medicines to the world.

Under the new law, multinational pharmaceutical firms that over the years had total control of the pharmaceutical industry here can no longer hold on to the patents of their medicines for life. At a certain point, the law will divest them of exclusive rights over their patents, thus enabling locally-owned pharmaceutical firms to develop our own medicines using these patents that are already considered owned by the public.

But going back to the apprehension by many if this new law can indeed bring down the prices of medicines, the law itself says so. But again, no matter how good the law is, if those tasked to implement it will not let it work or operate as envisioned by its framer, then the law is as useless as the implementer himself. Classic example to this is the current generics law. This was one of the most lauded laws passed by our own legislature that no less than its implementers castrated it by not seeing to it that its letter and spirit be observed faithfully.

This we should not do to this new law if we really want to give everyone access to affordable medicines.

(jelbacon@yahoo.com for reactions)

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