ROXAS CITY — Sen. Mar Roxas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and Commerce and Committee on Economic Affairs, recently submitted Senate Bill No. 2139, better known as the "Roxas Amendment," saying it would help improve the state of the people’s health.
The bill, according to the lawmaker, is meant to protect people from threats on their health by lowering the prices of the medicines.
Roxas, former congressman of the first district of Capiz, pushed the passing of the bill in the wake of reports that diseases like SARS, AIDS/HIV, cancer and tuberculosis, and bird flu, are plaguing Southeast Asian countries and other parts of the world.
The solon cited the July, 2005 Pulse Asia survey, where the study indicated that the most urgent personal concern of Filipinos today is how to avoid illnesses and to stay healthy at 53 percent.
Senate Bill 2139 efficiently seeks to lower the prices of medicines in the whole country by introducing amendments to current intellectual property and patent laws that govern the manufacture, sale, and production of medicines.
"The state of public health is definitively linked with economic growth," Roxas stressed. "Senate Bill 2139 aims to safeguard not only our people from deadly diseases, and protect the economy from its debilitating effects."
According to a recent report, globalization and extensive migration have caused health crises to have a greater impact on society and the economy.
What aggravates the problem, according to the report, is the lack of immediate access to ample amounts of medicine and medical information, as was the case with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Asian countries a few years back.
In Malaysia, during the onset of the Nipah and SARS outbreak, the hotel industry slumped dramatically and incurred losses amounting to $20 million.
