A month has passed after the implementation of the executive order on the maximum drug retail prices (MDRP) and the consumers are still burdened with high prices of medicines.
The Consumers’ Action for Empowerment affirms its earlier pronouncements that the MDRP will not make the prices of medicines affordable to ordinary Filipinos. It is evidently another band-aid solution by a government that does not put premium on the people’s right to health.
The MDRP executive order listed five medicines for compulsory compliance and 16 other essential medicines for voluntary compliance, but did not include the more widely used essential, first-line medicines needed for the treatment and cure of more prevalent diseases in the country.
According to Eleanor Nolasco, spokesperson of Consumers’ Action, the MDRP was not formulated on the right premise.
The MDRP is pegged at half the price of the innovator drug which is still high as compared to the available existing generic equivalent. For example, Norvasc, which is the innovator drug was originally priced at P77 in leading drug stores so that the MDRP of Amlodipine 10mg is P38.50. MDRP set is much higher than the available generic equivalent of Amlodipine 10mg sold at P15.
Definitely, the government did not have the ordinary citizens’ welfare in mind with the MDRP.
Nolasco also said that the big pharmaceuticals again emerged winner in this fight for affordable and accessible essential medicines. Their monopoly in the manufacturing up to distribution of drugs in the market remains unshaken due to the government’s selective and limited action of drug price regulation.
Amid protest actions and calls for the immediate cutback of the prices of all essential medicines, the government remains deaf.
With the non-inclusion of many other widely-used essential medicines in the MDRP, the government proves once again its half-heartedness in protecting and promoting the ordinary consumers’ rights.
Without sincere measures in lowering and regulating the prices of medicines, the government is condoning the monopoly of the transnational corporations such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Roche in the local drug industry.
Reference:
Eleanor M. Nolasco, R.N.
Spokesperson
Contact: 0905-3255-223
