Two proponents of the cheaper medicine measure Friday challenged Liberal Party vice presidential bet Senator Mar Roxas to a public debate “any time, anywhere” for the people to know the issue.

Rep. Ferjenel Biron and Iloilo Vice Gov. Rolex Suplico who claimed to be the first to file the cheaper medicine bill challenged Roxas to a public debate to clarify issues about the cheaper medicine law.

They claimed that Roxas cannot claim to be the author of Cheaper Medicine Act (RA 9502) because “the senator only filed Senate Bill 101 in the 14th Congress seeking parallel drug import which would have benefitted more the multinational companies.”

Biron claimed that Suplico, when still a congressman, filed the original bill seeking cheaper medicine in the 11th Congress, which the former re-filed in the 14th Congress, making it the basis in drafting the present law.

The congressmen alleged that it was Roxas who opposed, first as trade and industry secretary and then as senator, the mandatory price control on drugs, which would have reduced the price of 1,500 essential medicines by 80-90 percent.

Roxas, they said, allegedly “castrated the cheaper medicines law by making price regulation optional, limiting the coverage to only 22 essential medicines and reducing the price by only 50 percent.

Suplico claimed Roxas proclaims that Lepitor, the anti-hypertension drug, is now priced at P22 from P44 each, but the price of this same drug could have been brought down to P4.40 each under the House version.

“He (Roxas) killed the heart and soul of the bill I authored,” Suplico charged. “How can he now say that he was the author of the cheaper medicine law when all he wanted was an amendment to the intellectual property law.”