News blackout

SOURCE: The Daily Guardian

THERE seems to be a dearth of news on the revelations of lawyer Glenn Chong on the alleged irregularities in the 2016 national and local elections.

Chong’s allegations in the ongoing joint public hearing of the Senate Committees on electoral reform and people’s participation, social justice, welfare and rural development, finance, public information and mass media pins the blame on the partnership between the Commission on Elections and election technology provider Smartmatic.

A former congressman of Biliran, Chong claims that 459 transmissions from the municipality of Ragay, Camarines Norte were made on the early morning of May 8, a day before the 2016 elections. He backed his claims with system logs from the Comelec that were subpoenaed by the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) relative to the election protest case of defeated senatorial bet Francis Tolentino against jailed Senator Leila de Lima.

Chong’s allegations bolstered the earlier claims of Senate President Vicente Sotto III that anomalies attended the 2016 polls ranging from the existence of queuing servers, early transmission of votes, and a foreign remote access to the election servers.

Except for a handful of opinion columnists and blogs, national media outfits appear to be allergic to the issue. They will not touch the matter even with a 20-foot pole insulated with rubber to avoid kuryente or misinformation.

But if the Senate can afford to look into the matter amid questions on the motives and backgrounds of personalities involved, why can’t the national media do so?

This is how effective massive news blackout is.

***

Good news to those burdened by expensive medicines.

The Senate is now deliberating Senate Bill No. 1582 filed by Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri that seeks to amend Republic Act 9502 (the Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008).

Since its passage a decade ago, RA 9502 has failed to achieve its objective of bringing down prices of quality medicines for the poorest of Filipinos.

SB 1582’s counterpart measure, House Bill 3252, already hurdled deliberations at the committee on trade and industry headed by Iloilo 4th district Rep. Ferjenel Biron.

As we all know, Biron is one of the authors of RA 9502 and he also introduced HB 3252 in August 2016 yet.

Biron’s original intent in authoring the Cheaper Medicines Law was to bring down prices of medicines through a drug price regulatory mechanism which will be implemented by a drug price regulatory board (DPRB).

The DPRB was meant to look into and rationalize prices of essential and life-saving medicines for the benefit of poor and sickly Filipinos.

But Biron’s proposal was shot down at the Senate when senators pushed for parallel importation instead of drug price controls, hence the emasculated and toothless RA 9502.

In an interview with the Philippine Star in February 2018 after the approval of HB 3252 at the committee level, Biron said the government must step in to make essential medicines more affordable.

“We don’t have resources to compete with private interests. Thus, we need to use the power of the government to protect the poor. Without government intervention, we will continue to face the same situation wherein 30 percent of what we have to pay for medicines goes straight to the pockets of big drugstore chains,” Biron said.

(https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/02/12/1787060/bill-drug-price-regulatory-board-okd#Zej8cQfSu56fglj3.99 )

Being the principal author of RA 9502, Biron served as one of the resource persons during the hearing on SB 1582 at the Senate on August 7, 2018. We hope that these measures will pass both chambers of Congress and eventually strengthen the Cheaper Medicines Law for the sake of impoverished Filipinos.