by Jan Marcel and Alliage Morales
VERA Files
IF a minimum wage earner were to be stricken with diarrhea, relief can come cheap from the Department of Health’s Botika ng Barangay (BnB) outlets, where a 2-milligram capsule of generic loperamide would cost only P1.05.
The BnB price is vastly lower than what loperamide costs in commercial drugstores—P4.10 for generic and P14 for branded.
Launched by President Gloria Arroyo in 2001, the BnB program is the answer to poor Filipinos’ need for cheap medicine. But here’s the catch: There is not a single BnB outlet in some of the country’s poorest provinces and towns where they are needed most.
As of January 2009, there were 12,341 botikas, a long way from the 427 in 2003. But the program covers only half of the country’s 42,000 barangays and suffers from poor implementation and conflicting priorities from top to bottom. As a result, the BnB program has wasted scarce resources while denying health care services to the poorest areas it was meant to serve.
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Our botika ng bayan is only across the Mercury drugstore. Its great because what it does not have is available from the Mercury. I like better at the botika because I would be the only customer and talk with the young lady about her latest ex for hours before I ask leave to go to the other side of the street.
Less if not zero graft and corruption may mean more BnB’s.
Anyways, isn’t it good for our barangay officials learn how to do the following,
1- First Aid and CPR.
2- Paramedic duties.
mayroon na ba sa Antique?
Botika ng Barangay? Sinong niloloko nila? Lahat ng pakulo ni Gloria Dorobo ang may idea iyong garapal niyang asawa na malaki ang kinikita sa mga pinaggagagawa nila. Padded ang mga bills niyan, lalo na iyong kunyari ibibigay sa mga mahihirap.
Worse, kunyari manghihingi ng mga dole-outs from overseas like the ODA from the Japanese, Chinese and even Americans tapos tuloy-tuloy naman pala sa bulsa nila. Kunyari for the poor, pero lahat ng donations stashed doon sa private funds nila disguised as foundations kuno.
Lumang tugtugin na! Di pa ba nadadala ang mga pilipino? Dapat sa mga unggoy na iyan ipinapakulong. They should try to copy the Koreans or the Japanese. Hindi nakakaligtas iyong mga kunyari donations daw.