MANILA – Senator Manny Villar underscored yesterday the need to amend the Cheaper Medicines Act after it failed to achieve the primary objective of making the basic medicines available to the big number of poor Filipinos.

”What bothered me is that 90 percent of the poorest of the poor can’t still afford to buy essential medicines like Norvasc. I don’t want to see the poor Filipinos die because they can’t afford to buy medicines,” Villar said.

He made the statement during the Senate inquiry into the status of the implementation of the Cheaper Medicines Act at the Manila Tytana College along Macapagal Blvd. in Pasay City.

”It seems that this law is not successful in its objective to bring down the costs of medicines for the poor Filipinos. If we cannot bring down the prices of medicines, this law is useless,” Villar added.

Villar, chairperson of the Senate committee on trade and commerce, expressed dismay over the failure of the Department of Health to come out with comprehensive report on the implementation of the Cheaper Medicines Act.

”It’s very surprising. Actually, it shocked me that we have no exact data how many of the poor benefited from this law. What we are trying to establish is the magnitude of the problem and how the law is being implemented but you cannot give me an idea. I can see very clearly that you’re not monitoring this law,” Villar told the DOH representatives.

The senator said that under the law, the DOH is the government agency that should monitor the implementation of the Cheaper Medicines Act.

Villar said he would propose to increase the coverage of the law from only 27 medicines “to make sure that those who have no money will not die because they have no money.”

When the Cheaper Medicines law was enacted four years ago, the costs of the 22 basic medicines have been reduced by at least 50 percent but Villar wants to see if it could be reduced even up to 70 percent like in other countries such as Thailand and India.

Villar said he would invite the drug manufacturers in the next hearing after learning that many small drug retailers cannot lower the prices as prescribed by the law due to higher costs imposed by the manufacturers on the basic medicines covered by the Cheaper Medicines Act.

”We will invite representatives of the drug manufacturers in the next hearing so that we may be able to determine how they can help to lower further the costs of medicines,” he said.*PNA

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