The Pangasinan Star ONLINE

The Pen Speaks
Danny O. Sagun


HE may not be eating threats for breakfast yet as feisty Sen. Miriam Santiago had claimed during her stormy days at the immigration bureau but Ray Jacinto of the Bureau of food and Drugs (BFAD) may soon be forced to do so at the rate he is doing his job as head of the enforcement division of the agency against erring doctors and drugstore owners as well. He is stepping on too many sensitive toes.

Dr. Jacinto took centerstage with the recent expose about some 10 doctors from Pangasinan allegedly involved in the dispensing or sale of counterfeit drugs from Pakistan and India. Ray, an active colleague in the Consumernet and busy doing information work on consumerism as we do at the PIA Pangasinan, is being pressured to name names. Provincial Administrator Virgilio Solis himself asked him to identify the erring doctors to start a proper investigation on the matter.

But Ray wont bite. "Gusto nila malibel ako?," he reacted when we similarly asked him to do so after an interview over DZRH Dagupan last Thursday morning. He said he will only reveal the names once complaints are filed against them.

No Pangasinan physician is facing a court complaint yet in connection with the dispensing or sale of counterfeit drugs. In Ilocos Sur, BFAD has already filed complaints against alleged violators. He rattled off the names of certain doctors there like Resonable, Daus and Ragasa, known physicians who operate hospitals and drugstores.

Jacinto disclosed that his assets -- patients and some drugstore owners themselves -- are similarly under threats. He noted that the 10 or so doctors alluded to as customers of a Pakistani national, who is alleged to be importer of the drugs, are that influential and well-connected.

The Calasiao police last August 5 arrested two women traders for selling counterfeit drugs peddled by the Pakistani. They are out on bail of P60,000 each. The NBI also arrested later a Filipino-Indian In Lucao for the same offense.

Counterfeit drugs are not necessarily fake but are imported and did not pass thru BFAD.

In short, they are smuggled, he clarified. Fake drugs, on the other hand, are produced locally (In Pampanga particularly) and with no curative effect as they are made of gawgaw. "Baka lahar pa," he said noting that lahar abounds in Pampanga after the Mount Pinatubo eruption. Fakes can be readily distinguished thru their poor labeling and packaging. Imported ones bear those "bulate" (Arabic) markings. The brand name is inscribed in large letters while the generic name, if there is, is hardly distinguishable. A registered imported drug, he also clarified, bears the words in the label “Imported by (name of drug company, say Pfizer)”

On why medicines here cost that much, he laid the blame on drug manufacturers who, he said, spend too much on promotional gimmicks and company-sponsored conventions for doctors. Due to deforestation, the country lacks raw materials for making medicines but such materials still abound in other countries like Pakistan and India where cheap medicines come from.

Judging from few interactions with him (during the Consumernet meetings and that DZRH interview) we could still see his idealism and sincerity in his work though Ray is past nearing the optional retirement age. He sighs that young doctors now are no longer of the service-oriented type forgetting their Hippocratic oath about service to humanity.