Punchline
PGMA embarrasses Sec. Pingkoy
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
I pity our two kabaleyans in the cabinet, who, as good soldiers for the wrong commander, are bearing the brunt of PGMA’s handling of the Cheaper Medicines Act willy-nilly.
Mrs. Arroyo certainly had no qualms embarrassing Health Sec. Pingkoy Duque and Trade Sec. Peter Favila, making them look like the fools who didn’t have foresight on how to enforce the law, by refusing to sign the Executive Order that Duque drafted. The draft listed the medicines that henceforth should be priced more than fifty percent lower than present levels, in compliance with the one-year-old law.
It was bad enough that Pingkoy was made to sit on the law’s implementing guideline for over a year, depriving Filipinos of access to cheaper priced medicines earlier but when crunch time finally came for him, the multinational pharmaceutical groups quickly pelted him with tomatoes by pitting Roberto Romulo, the foreign secretary’s brod, and Trade Sec. Peter Favila against him.
And, true to form, Mrs. Arroyo promptly junked the loyal and conscientious health secretary’s position by mouthing the multinationals’ chorus – that the country will send the wrong message to prospective foreign investors that foreign investments are not protected in the country if the EO is signed! What gobbledygook! What country (including those of the foreign investors’) would seek to protect foreign investors over the health of its people? But I wasn’t really shocked to see Mrs. Arroyo so determined to send the “right” message to foreign investors that, yes, laws in the Philippines can be applied selectively for the right price! (She did say, she won the elections by 1 million votes, right?).
Mrs. Arroyo even made it appear that Pingkoy was remiss in his duties for failing to consult the pharma sector about his proposed list of medicines that would be covered by the law! Did she actually expect Pingkoy to initiate the “negotiation” by discussing the list with the pharma groups? To rub insult to injury, Favila, as trade secretary, was called in to buffer the multinationals’ call to the further embarrassment of Pingkoy. He did as told, awkwardly, for he knew Pingkoy was in the right.
Pingkoy has always been in the forefront fighting for quality health services for our people. I saw him in action deliberating the Cheaper Medicines bill with legislators, and he supported the provision that gave the health secretary authority to recommend the list of medicines to be covered by a price ceiling for the immediate benefit of the Filipinos, instead of creating a body of legislators to decide on such issues. And yes, Mrs. Arroyo gave her imprimatur that’s why she signed the bill into law last year. And now, this!
Pingkoy, like a good soldier, will never admit that the surprise turnaround is a blow to his level of confidence but his body language on TV says it all. He did what he thought was best for the country only to be summarily rejected all because of another instance of transactional governance in the Arroyo administration. Pingkoy wants to serve cheaper but quality medicines to our people pronto but his boss says the people can wait!
I sure wished Pingkoy is health secretary for an uncompromising president.
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WHEN KILLING IS NORMAL. Something is sorely amiss in the “killing” word war between the provincial board (c/o BM Alfie Bince) and the provincial police (c/o Smiley PD Barba).
Well-intentioned BM Alfie thinks that the solution to the killing by hired guns riding in tandem is to impose a set curfew on guys riding the motorbikes in tandem. Duh? Then Smiley PD Barba (“SPDB” na lang for short) counters with his claim that the killing wave is about statistics and the figures indicate the killing wave is still within the normal curve. Duh? And another duh?
On Alfie’s wild suggestion: People ride motorbikes in tandem for a hundred reasons, and for the assassins, killing is only one of them. For a good majority of peace-loving citizens, riding in tandem (by twos up to fours) no matter how risky and dangerous, is the cheapest and fastest way to get to a destination at anytime of the day. If that ordinance is passed, not only will the police have its hands full just checking on thousands of motorbike riders at night and hauling curfew violators to the precincts, but the police neither have the equipment nor the facilities to haul and detain both the riders and motorcycles overnight. Next suggestion, please!
The provincial board should instead look in the direction on how to strengthen the police intelligence network in the barangays. Criminals need places to meet before they carry out their plans and where they can chill out after a “good ride”. The least suspected areas in barangays make for a good cover. Surely, barangay officials know a stranger when they see one, or know of a criminal in their barangays. Besides, our barangay kapitans are already armed with shotguns, so they have nothing to fear.
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On SPDB’s callous mind: The province and Guv Spines are in serious trouble with the mindset of SPDB. It is never “normal” to see one killed in broad daylight and see the culprits get away with it. To hear him make such a callous and preposterous claim is just as shocking when one hears of lives of scores of people being snuffed out at the price of one cellphone. He talks of “90% solving rate” but says nothing about his efforts at crime prevention. How many loose firearms have the police seized? How many suspected armed groups and hired guns have the police neutralized? How many assassination attempts have been foiled? How many of the suspected killers who rode in tandem have been identified? Do we hear him say “Normal results”? Next answer, please!
By rattling off statistics, SPDB has, so far, wittingly skirted the issue, specifically, the failure of his command’s intelligence network to prevent the killings. But Guv Spines, more than anyone else in the Capitol, knows if police intelligence is shabby or not. He understands how funds are deployed and whether the funds are utilized properly or not. The unabated killings are telling enough but for still some unknown reasons, Guv Spines has not been critical of SPDB’s performance notwithstanding the alarming crime wave in the province. And so far, the provincial board has spared Guv Spines of accountability.
Why, Guv Spines? Why, BM Alfie?
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