PRESS RELEASE
23 APRIL 2008
The consumer group, Cut the Cost, Cut the Pain Network (3CPNet) hits the Senate panel in the bicameral committee deliberating the cheaper medicines bill as they accuse Senators Pia Cayetano of holding the bill hostage as she hard presses the bicam to drop the drop the generics only provision.
“The public deserves to know the truth. The Senate panel held the bill hostage by their demand to drop the provision in the last bicam meeting and is still causing disunity among the bicam members until now,” said Edeliza Hernandez, Co-Convenor of 3CPNet.
Hernandez said the consumer group is dismayed over the public statements of Senator Roxas that the delay is caused by the House of Representatives’ insistence on the generics-only provision.
“We laud the members of the House of Representatives for standing their ground on the Generics Act amendment because this is one of the measures for the public to have access to affordable and quality medicines and increase the poor patients’ chance of recovering from their illness,” said Hernandez.
Roxas announced that the bill will be passed anytime because the House of Representatives has agreed to drop the generics only provision. According to Hernandez, the Senate panel, particularly Sen. Pia Cayetano made a lot of unfounded objections, unviable requirements and other conditions that prevented the law from being passed.
“We expect Cayetano as Chair of the Senate’s Committee on Health to uphold the interest of public health and not the profit interests of medical doctors and pharmaceutical companies who strongly opposed the generics provision of the bill,” said Hernandez.
The bicameral committee had already synchronized the final version of the bill during the first bicameral conference committee, except for the generics only provision. According to information gathered by 3CPNet, the House panel led by Reps. Antonio Alvarez and Teddy Boy Locsin tried to talk to Roxas early this week to reach a possible compromise position on the generics amendment but the Senate panel refused to give in.
“The legislators should be held accountable to the people for passing an imperfect law. We hope that Congress and Malacañang will have the same vigor in fixing it by pursuing the Generics Act amendment in another legislative measure. Meanwhile, Congress will spend more taxpayers’ money for this process,” Hernandez concluded. (ENDS)
