THE Senate, setting aside ongoing inquiries into administration anomalies, opens simultaneous hearings this morning on Malacañang-certified urgent bills, including the proposed 2008 national budget and a long-awaited legislation amending patent laws to lower medicine prices.

Executive officials sitting in the Budget Coordinating Council, led by Finance Secretary Margarito Teves and Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya, are set to brief members of the Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, on the P1.3- trillion budget bill the Palace earlier submitted for Congress approval.

The budget briefings are being held in lieu of formal hearings because the Senate, technically, has to wait first for the approval of the money measure in the House of Representatives where, under the constitution, all appropriations bills must originate.                                         

At the same time, the Trade and Commerce Committee of Sen. Mar Roxas will open hearings on bills seeking to lower prices of medicine in the country jointly with the Committee on Health and Demography chaired by Sen. Pia Cayetano-Sebastian.

In a statement over the weekend, Senator Roxas announced that the two committees would hold weekly hearings “until these [affordable medicine] bills are enacted into law.”

Roxas indicated a bipartisan consensus in Congress to correct huge discrepancies between local prices of drugs and those sold in other countries, particularly patented drugs for diseases that affect majority of Filipinos.

For instance, the senator cited the rising incidence of diabetes worldwide, which has also afflicted some three million Filipinos.

“Aside from this, there are eight million prediabetics with dangerously high blood-sugar levels,” he added.

Roxas pointed out how a common maintenance drug for diabetes, Daonil, costs P9.86 locally for a 5-mg tablet, which is taken twice a day. The same tablet, he noted, could be bought from India for less than one peso, or just 80 centavos.

“That means very big savings; almost P10 per tablet, or P20 a day for our diabetics,” he said.

Later in the day, the Senate Committees on Economic Affairs and on Banks and Financial Institutions, chaired by Sens. Loren Legarda and Edgardo Angara, respectively, will also hold a joint hearing on at least four related bills amending the Magna Carta for Small Enterprises to promote entrepreneurship by strengthening development and assistance programs to micro-small-and medium-scale enterprises.

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Seeing the need for a strong security force, military and civilian officials of Lamitan City, Basilan, which was once besieged by the Abu Sayyaf, have inked a memorandum of agreement (MOA) mandating the activation of a company-sized paramilitary force in the area.

THE Senate, setting aside ongoing inquiries into administration anomalies, opens simultaneous hearings this morning on Malacañang-certified urgent bills, including the proposed 2008 national budget and a long-awaited legislation amending patent laws to lower medicine prices.

THE House of Representatives should not let retired Army Technical Sgt. Vidal Doble testify in any “Hello Garci” investigation because it will put question on the credibility of future legislative investigations and results, a proadministration lawmaker said Sunday.

IT’S PRAYER, not protest actions, that the family of deposed President Joseph Estrada is asking for from millions of his supporters.

THE Court of Appeals (CA) has affirmed the one-year suspension imposed by the Board of Medicine (BOM) on a doctor whose incorrect diagnosis and operation led to the death of a 17-year-old boy 10 years ago.

THE Philippine Air Force (PAF), armed with an initial capital outlay of P5 billion, has opened its doors to bidders to replace its aging fleets of helicopters, light trainers and troop-and-cargo carriers.