Ilonggos hail PGMA's Botika ng Barangay program
CABATUAN, Iloilo, Sept. 25 -- Thousands of Ilonggo residents braved heavy rains Thursday to welcome President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with enthusiasm as she opened the 15,000th Botika ng Barangay at the Tiring Elementary School in Barangay Tiring here.
The residents thanked the President for the program aimed at providing cheaper but quality medicines for the poor.
“Since the medicines being sold in the Botika ng Barangay OUTLETS are 50 percent lower compared to branded ones, it is a big help to most of us residents since majority of the people here are poor. The money that will be saved can be added to our daily needs,” Arlanza said.
She said that people, who buy maintenance drugs for hypertension and other diseases, could greatly benefit from this effort initiated by the government.
Tiring barangay chairman Genovevo Montecado praised the program, saying it was to provide affordable but high quality medicines.
Montecado said that residents had a hard time buying medicines in another outlet located three kilometers away because they needed to cross a river just to get there.
The village chief noted that he could now buy his daily dose of multivitamins in the newly-opened outlet and save half the amount for his other needs.
Government's economic reform agenda has kept RP afloat - PGMA
CABATUAN,
In a regional media interview hosted by John Sapio of the Manila Broadcasting Company (MBC) Aksyon Radyo here Thursday, President Arroyo pointed out that government’s effective coordination of fiscal and monetary policies proved beneficial to the economy, steering it away from recession.
Speaking in Hiligaynon, the Chief Executive thanked the lawmakers who passed the value added tax reform because the government now has money to invest in human and physical infrastructures.
She added that the economic growth posted in the first semester of this year can largely be credited to the government’s speedy implementation of the Economic Resiliency Plan which included measures aimed at generating jobs through infrastructure spending and supporting the poor through conditional cash transfers.
President Arroyo noted that the country’s labor market has remained resilient despite the global economic downturn because 980,000 jobs were generated in net employment as of July this year.
She noted that a total of 304,933 have been employed nationwide through the Comprehensive Livelihood Emergency Employment Program (CLEEP) of the government.
CLEEP is the administration's nationwide effort intended to protect the country's most vulnerable sectors -- such as the poor, returning expatriates, workers in the export industry, and out-of-school youths, from threats and consequences of reduced or lost income as a consequence of the global economic crisis -- by providing emergency employment and funding and supervising livelihood projects.
DOH holds first Philippine generics expo
The fight against high-priced medicines continues.
In line with the implementation of the Cheaper Medicines Act, the Department of Health, together with its partner agencies, the World Health Organization, the Philippine Chamber of Pharmaceutical Industries, the Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association of the Philippines, GTZ, and PITC-Pharma today host the first ever Philippine Generics Expo in Megatrade Hall 1, 5th floor SM Mega Mall, September 25-26, 2009. It is also being held in celebration of the Generics Awareness Month this September. The Expo highlights quality generic medicine companies and their products which people can buy during the two-day event.
“Generic medicines have been our unsung heroes in the fight against costly, expensive, abusively- priced medicines. All these years, these generic medicine companies have competed against their high-priced innovator counterparts. Such competition has forced some of these high-priced medicine prices to go down to more affordable levels, just as it has further improved the quality of generic medicines through the years. If more and more doctors prescribe generic medicines and more and more people use generic medicines, these offer more competition to further force medicine prices to go down,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III says.
“As a matter of fact, 5 to 6 of 10 Filipinos are indeed using generic medicines now. This emerging generation of wise consumers is surely increasing and it has caused the reduction of many medicine prices already such as of simvastatin, paracetamol, amoxicillin, and many, many more medicines for a variety of diseases. This is why our theme for this year’s Generics Awareness month celebration is “We Love Generics: Join our Generation!,” Duque added.
Further, to show the benefits of generics, the DOH also signs today an agreement with the Cancer Warriors Foundation to invest 20 Million pesos for the purchase of generic anti-cancer medications that is earmarked to benefit children with leukemia. These medicines that would have benefited only a few patients for the same amount due to the high costs of treatment can now help hundreds of leaukemic patients. The medicines are purchased through PITC-Pharma and are 2 to 5 times cheaper than the innovator counterparts but are of excellent quality.
“We love generics because they have always been in the forefront of our fight against expensive healthcare. Many children with cancer die every day because they cannot afford their medication. Hopefully, we see the heroism of generics through the lives of these children we save,” Duque stresses.
Secretary Duque elaborates that even in the midst of the policies recently adopted to make medicines more accessible to all, such as the imposition of ceiling prices for medicines, generic medicines still give much affordable price and much more savings.
A commissioned study recently done by the DOH and the DTI revealed that generic medicines can be up to 80% cheaper than their innovator counterparts.
The Expo also offers free medical consultation, surprise guests, prizes and giveaways to lucky winners, and many more. Concurrently, a current good manufacturing practice workshop shall be conducted to highlight how generic medicine companies in the
“We remain relentless in our pursuit for quality affordable medicines for all. And we invite all our people to join us in the fight, to join us in Generation Generics!” Duque concluded.
9 bidders expected to compete for IPP hydro plants
Nine investors are expected to vie for the appointment of independent power producer administrators (IPPAs) to manage the National Power Corporation’s contracted capacities in the San Roque, Bakun, and Benguet hydroelectric power plants.
This was confirmed by the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corporation after the deadline for the execution and undertaking of a Confidentiality Agreement with PSALM and the payment of the non-refundable USD10,000 Participation Fee lapsed last Tuesday, 22 September 2009.
The government’s power privatization agency also reported that the nine bidders have each received their Bidding Packages, and are currently conducting their Due Diligence on the hydro IPPs. The Due Diligence can be held until two days before the Bid Submission Deadline.
PSALM, which published the Invitation to Bid (ITB) on 07 to 09 September 2009, will hold the Pre-bid Conference for the interested parties on Wednesday, 30 September 2009, to discuss the Bidding Procedures. The bidding is scheduled on 11 November 2009.
At stake in this particular bidding are National Power’s contracted capacities in the 345-megawatt (MW) San Roque Multipurpose Hydroelectric Power Plant, the 70-MW Bakun Hydroelectric Power Plant, and the 30-MW Benguet Mini-Hydro power plants, which are all located in
The San Roque hydro plant is based in San Manuel, Pangasinan, while the Bakun plant is located in Alilem, Ilocos
PSALM will adopt the same two-envelope bidding system it uses for its bidding exercises in this auction. The bidders, however, will have to submit three separate bids for each of the contracted capacities to be considered as a qualified participant.
Conrad S. Tolentino, acting vice president of PSALM’s Asset Management and Electricity Trading, said the interested parties “have to bid for all and can win as many as they can” in the bidding for the three hydro facilities. Thus, bidders who will submit an offer for only one or any two of the contracted capacities will be disqualified, he pointed out. Likewise, a joint bid for any of the contracted capacities will not be authorized.
PSALM’s rules stipulate that a qualified bidder may be declared the winning bidder for any one or all of the contracted capacities.
High level ILO mission to the Philippines on convention no. 87 freedom of association and right to organize
A High Level Mission of the International Labour Organization (ILO) will visit the Philippines from 22-29 September 2009 to review matters relating to the application in law and in practice of the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention (No. 87), 1948, which the Philippines ratified in 1953.
The Philippines was among 25 cases discussed in 2007 by the International Labour Conference Committee on the Application of Standards (CAS) and, following a number of trade union complaints which had been submitted to the ILO*s supervisory bodies, was invited to accept a high level mission. In 2009, the Philippine government accepted the high level mission to identify areas in which the ILO could provide support and technical assistance for effective application of the convention.
The
On legislative issues, the
The report of the
The mission team includes Ms. Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, Director of the ILO International Labour Standards Department, Ms. Karen Curtis, Deputy Director of the ILO International Labour Standards Department and responsible for Freedom of Association and Mr. Tim de Meyer, International Labour Standards Specialist of the ILO Subregional Office for East Asia.
