FILIPINOS long reeling from the bloatedand runaway prizes of medicine in the country should stand up and be heard (and counted) today on the scandalously high cost of healthcare here.  

There should now be a serious and sustained effort among all of us low and middle-income Pinoys to :
1.      Fight the brazen attempt of the  influential Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP) and their lobbyists to kill in the water  Senate Bill No. 2139 that aims to lower drug prices  by amending the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, which Code has  become, in a manner of speaking, the refuge of scoundrels; and ,

2.       Back government efforts to the hilt  for the parallel importation of patented medicines from countries like India and Pakistan where these can be obtained at infinitely cheaper  prices  and not just the present import of  “off patent” medicines from abroad being done by the Philippine International Trading Corp (PITC). In case you still don’t know, it is from the PITC “imported” drugs supplies  where President Arroyo’s government  gets its medicine supplies for its Botika ng Bayan.
Just by actively advocating for these two initiatives already set in motion by Senator Manuel A. Roxas III who filed the bill with full support from Sen. Juan M. Flavier, you will have sent a strong signal to multinational drug companies (who compose the bulk of PHAP membership) that they can’t bleed us Pinoys any further and their profit game is up. Why, even a top gun of the world’s pharmaceutical industry, Pfizer’s CEO Hank Mckinnell, himself has virtually admitted in a book he recently published “A Call to Action: Taking Back Healthcare for Future Generations” that the pharmaceutical industry “or any industry”  cannot make as excuse for high price tags on its product the company’s need to recover R & D (research and development)  costs in manufacturing and distributing that product.  

In a Special Report by Daxim L. Lucas published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, McKinnell saiys: “Business doesn’t work  like that. Those (R & D expenses) are sunk costs. In other words, (pharmaceutical firms)  spent the money and it cannot be recovered no matter what (they) decide to do with pricing.”
So, how’s that for weakening the defense arguments put up by the drug companies to justify their  exorbitant price rates, huh?
Government at this point is on the right track, if not actually putting its heart in the proper place by advocating  for importation of lower priced drugs from abroad. Legislators from both chambers stand to gain much in terms of political mileage, deliberately or otherwise, and support among the people  by backing the Roxas bill.   
This “people first” policy should go a long way towards  keeping more sick poor people alive  — or at the very least,  living longer than a profit-driven drugs industry  would so heartlessly allow them to.
Long live freedom – from overpriced  drugs!