An administration lawmaker estimated that as much as P1 billion was being spent by giant pharmaceutical companies to prevent both chambers of Congress from passing a bill aimed at lowering the prices of medicines in the country.
Iloilo Rep. Ferjenel Biron, a leading advocate of the measure in the House of Representatives, said on Sunday a big part of the amount was not necessarily spent to directly bribe legislators into shooting down a cheaper medicines bill.
"It includes the expenses for aggressive advertisements on radio, television, and newspapers," he said. Biron said the amount of the alleged lobby money first came to light when the advocacy for cheaper medicines became prominent in the 11th Congress.
"I'm sure they're preparing the same amount for the 14th Congress," Biron said. "No less than the President has verbalized her intention to have the bill passed so these companies are preparing for a tough battle," he said.
Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas, author of a similar bill in the 14th Congress which opened last week, said the pharmaceutical companies would be "frustrated" if they would lobby against the measure.
"The Speaker himself has personally vowed to give the highest priority to the bill's passage," he said in a statement. "Our people desperately need access to affordable medicine. The new Congress has no other recourse but to quickly pass the bill. It is bad enough that the previous Congress failed to pass [it]," he said.
Biron said he was no stranger to "subtle lobbying" by the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP), which also represented giant foreign drug companies that operated in the country.
During the 13th Congress, he said he was approached by PHAP people to lobby against a cheaper medicines bill.
He said the last attempt came during the last session day in June when a PHAP representative allegedly asked him that they "talk about the bill."
"Their manner is very subtle," Biron said. "They would politely ask if they could invite me for lunch or dinner or if they could visit me in my office. But I told them that it's too late because they didn't lower the prices of their medicines," he said.
The PHAP has consistently denied bribing lawmakers.
During the special congressional session in February 2007, four of its lobbyists were kicked out of the plenary hall of the House for apparently intervening when legislators were about to vote on the Cheaper Medicines Act of 2007 on the third and final reading.
The lobbyists passed a note asking Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin to question the quorum, a move that would have killed the bill. The measure eventually failed to pass because of lack of quorum.
The PHAP later issued a statement saying: "Since the PHAP is a corporate constituent in the first congressional district of Representative Locsin, we wanted to get (him) to listen to our proposed amendments … In any democratic country, the first step one must take in order to be heard is to write your congressman."
Biron said he had experienced first-hand the effects of intense lobbying by drug companies in the media.
"I am hardly invited to talk shows to discuss the cheaper medicines bill," he said. "I would eventually learn that some television stations were told by the companies not to have me as a guest. Otherwise, they would pull out their advertisements."
Despite the purported pressure, he said he would make it similarly difficult for drug companies to suppress the bill in Congress.
"As long as I and my fellow congressmen advocating cheaper medicines are here, these companies will have a lot of headache."
Biron is the author of House Bill No. 1, a resurrected version of the failed Cheaper Medicines Act of 2007.
Unlike the version passed by the Senate in the 13th Congress, the Biron measure includes a provision for drug price regulation.
Under this scheme, a body will be formed to determine the price cap to keep companies from selling drugs at exorbitant prices.
Also unlike the Senate bill authored by Sen. Manuel Roxas II, the Biron bill "clearly identifies" the types of drugs whose prices would be drastically lowered, Biron said.
He said it would be useless to allow the parallel importation of patented drugs, the centerpiece measure of the Roxas bill, because these supposedly covered only about 100 out of the 40,000 registered drugs in the country.
Norvasc, the popular anti-hypertensive drug sold at P44.75 per tablet in the Philippines but only P6 in India, was already "off-patent," according to Biron.(Inquirer News Service)
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