“Life, governance and politics are, after all, giant gambles. It matters not if one is good or just plain lucky. What counts in the end are the results.”
by Ducky Paredes
From the State of the Nation Address, probably the best one ever of the nine delivered by President Gloria Arroyo, we have this: “(W)e ended 2007 with the strongest economic growth in a generation. Inflation was low, the peso strong and a million new jobs were created. We were all looking to a better, brighter future.
“Because tough choices were made, kumikilos na ang bayan sa wakas. Malapit na sana tayo sa pagbalanse ng budget. We were retiring debts in great amounts, reducing the drag on our country’s development, habang namumuhunan sa taong bayan.
“Biglang-bigla, nabaligtad ang ekonomiya ng mundo. Ang pagtalon ng presyo ng langis at pagkain ay nagbunsod ng pandaigdigan krisis, the worst since the Great Depression and the end of World War II. Some blame speculators moving billions of dollars from sub prime mortgages to commodities like fuel and food. Others point to the very real surge in demand as millions of Chinese and Indians move up to the middle class.
“Whatever the reasons, we are on a roller coaster ride of oil price hikes, high food prices and looming economic recession in the US and other markets. Uncertainty has moved like a terrible tsunami around the globe, wiping away gains, erasing progress.
“This is a complex time that defies simple and easy solutions. For starters, it is hard to identify villains, unlike in the 1997 financial crisis. Everyone seems to be a victim, rich countries and poor, though certainly some can take more punishment than others.”
Obviously, the Philippines is doing better than most and it is only right that the President takes some credit for that.
I hear businessmen saying that it is the e-vat that saved us but that this was something which she pushed only reluctantly since it went against her usual populist stance that is the tradpol in her. They could be right, of course. I go, however, for the little blessings that come our way. She might have been forced to do the hard things but the fact that it was done is what actually saved these days for us.
For whatever reason she did what she did, thank God for that!
Back to the SONA: ““Because tough choices were made, the global crisis did not catch us helpless and unprepared. Through foresight, grit and political will, we built a shield around our country that has slowed down and somewhat softened the worst effects of the global crisis. We have the money to care for our people and pay for food when there are shortages; for fuel despite price spikes.
“Neither we nor anyone else in the world expected this day to come so soon but we prepared for it. For the guts not to flinch in the face of tough choices, I thank God. For the wisdom to recognize how needed you are, I thank, you Congress. For footing the bill, I thank the taxpayers.”
However Gloria got us to where we are at the moment – whether she planned it this way because she saw the coming of the financial flu or because she only got lucky — does not really matter. Life, governance and politics are, after all, giant gambles. It matters not if one is good or just plain lucky. What counts in the end are the results.
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The stinging quotes on politics and politicians in the SONA that went so well with the audience and even ordinary folk were not part of the written text of her speech. Those were some of the best parts. I like Gloria when she gets bitchy. And I bet that her stingers also communicated her fighting mood to the rest of us Pinoys.
It’s good that she is in a fighting mood just before leaving for Washington, D.C. Hopefully she will be in a fighting mood to do well for the country in her last year as President.
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Finally, we have Executive Order 821 or Maximum Drug Retail Prices (MDRP), imposing a 50 percent price cut on five commonly used medicines as mandated by the Cheaper Medicines Law (R.A. 9502). While Big Pharma is still bellyaching and threatening no new drugs coming into the country, they ought to look at our situation and tailor their marketing efforts to what this market can bear.
The next reform, however, will be to turn more to generic drugs. I take hypertension medication. Although these will not cure the disease, the drugs does keep my blood pressure down and maintain the systolic and diastolic to the levels where when a measurement is taken, it fools me into thinking that I have no hypertension. It is still there, however.
There are heaper generic drugs that I could take if a doctor will give me a prescription for them. Most doctors I have talked to, however, tell me that they cannot guarantee the effectivity of the generics. I know, of course, that doctors are visited by detail men on a regular basis and they do get a lot of freebies from Big Pharma.
The Sulit Card of Pfizer is actually part of he mechanism for distributing freebies. These cards are given to doctors who then register these cards as they are given away. Thus, as the card is used, this records the transaction in the individual doctor’s ledger. This has to be the reason why Pfizer prefers giving discounts using their sulit cards instead of just bringing their price down. What would be the difference since these drugs cannot be dispensed anyway without a prescription?
One has to wonder whether a cure for hypertension, diabetes and other diseases would become easier to find if Big Pharma was not making so much money on maintenance drugs that treat the symptoms rather than the disease itself.
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“In the past 25 years the Philippines has averaged 3.1% annual GDP growth, with a population growth of 2.5%. Which means almost no improvement for the Filipino over that 25 years. This is about half, or less, the rate achieved by other nations in Asia.” – Peter Wallace
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hvp 07.29.09)
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