Kudos to GMA for
airport decision

Both President Gloria Arroyo and City Mayor Evelio Leonardia deserve kudos for the former's decision to allow the retention of the Bacolod Airport even if only confined to one airline.

The President reportedly gave the nod for general aviation, a possible flying school, and even to allowing one airline to operate.

Of course, that does not solve the problem immediately. It may take sometime for the airport to become operational again. There will be need for navigational equipment and instruments. In short, that's no automatic thing. Still, there is hope that Bacolod folk need not really travel far to be able to get their flights out of the city.

There is hope for tourism in Bacolod .

***

One of the humorous things that PNP Chief Avelino Razon did the other day was the announcement that a mediawoman had helped Capt. Faeldon escape from the Manila Peninsula .

But he refused to name the said individual, tossing it to members of media to establish her identity. But he ruled out naming the said errant media member.

The problem is that the said female journalist was caught on TV with Faeldon. Now even if she was in company of Faeldon, how come they immediately deduced that she helped him escape from the police cordon around the Manila pen?

In short, this is more of a psy-war thing designed to cast doubts on the credibility of the media members present at the Manila Peninsula in Makati .

If it is true that they have the goods on the female journalist, why did not the police file the corresponding charges against her and resorted only to innuendoes that tend to disparage other journalists?

What's the game of the general?

***

We hope and pray for the speedy recovery of Negros Occidental Governor Joseph Marañon. May the Lord grant him to move out soon from his hospital room and return home where he can have a more restful ambience.

It is good that Joe Val has been coming out with periodic bulletins on the governor's health. That discouraged texters about his premature demise, attributable only to those with the worse intentions for the provincial executive.

***

Local doctors and top officials of practicing physicians have gone against the amendment to the Generics act that ban them from suggesting brand names of medicines for their patients.

I saw Dr. Antonio Gauzon stressed that medics have to make sure that the medicines they are recommending to their patients are best for them. On the other hand, he pointed out, salesgirls and even pharmacists lack the knowledge and training needed to determine which medicines are best suited to patients.

My late wife, Dr. Lourdes L. Espina, was an advocate of generic drugs. But she never restricted herself to only generics. She often resorted to brand drugs which these were found to be more effective than the generics.

A doctor has often to determine which drugs, whether generic or brand-named, will prove most effective and safest for a patient. And that means that he or she must have a range of medical preparations to examine for what could best serve the interest of the patient.

Often, what happens is that the physician asks the patient which of two medical preparation her patient could afford – the generics or the brand name drug.

In effect, by restricting doctors to any generics automatically consigns brand medicines to second-class preparations. Not only that, medicine which had been invested with millions of pesos to discover their efficacy, would be designated to second class status.

Which is not true.

The amendment is dangerous because it shackles medical practitioners. And we join our medical practitioners in condemning that amendment as dangerous.

***

One thing may have escaped our notice. It is the virtual collapse of the Philippine Stock Market and other Asian stocks as reports of the ailing economy of the United States get around.

Even the European stock markets had been affected already. And almost all Asian stock markets have suffered a downtrend.

The fact that the economic ills of the US have become a major issue among the contenders for both the Republican and Democratic primaries indicate that all is not well with the US state.

That surely will impact on the rest of the world.*

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