By Mia M. Gonzalez, Reporter
Business Mirror – September 18, 2007

PRESIDENT Arroyo said Monday she has invited Philippine drugstore owners to join her forthcoming state visit to India next month so they can look for sources of cheap medicines to sell back home.

The President said at a town hall-type meeting in Dipolog City, where she inaugurated the P289-million Zamboanga del Norte Medical Center, that local governments, and government-run and private drugstores can import cheap medicine without going through the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC).

“[Importing] half-priced medicine is not a monopoly of the PITC. Anybody who wants to buy half-priced medicine from India can do so even without going to the PITC. In fact, when I go to India on October 4, I am inviting the members of the drugstore industry who want to buy half-priced medicine in India,” Mrs. Arroyo said.

The President will go on a state visit to India after a working visit to the United States later this month, followed by a visit to China. This is in return to the state visit by then Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to the Philippines in February 2006.

She is expected to visit Mumbai and New Delhi, and is expected to enhance bilateral relations with India and generate interest in the Philippines’ business process-outsourcing industry.

Mrs. Arroyo said the PITC merely “pioneered” the trading of half-priced medicine, but “any drugstore, local government, national government, private company, can carry half-priced medicine even without the PITC.”

She said this way, more people across the nation can have access to cheaper medicine while waiting for Congress to pass the cheaper medicines bill.

The President also announced that the government will open 4,000 more Botica ng Barangay, which sells lower-priced medicine in depressed areas, which would bring to 15,000 the number of such facilities by 2008.