Friends

Gloria finally signed the Cheaper Medicines Act into law. This allows for parallel importation as well as overriding MNC patents over critical drugs.

The Joint Foreign Chamber of Commerce got a drubbing from the Senate for releasing a statement criticizing government's moves that will amend the still-flawed EPIRA and fast-track the privatization of NAPOCOR assets, opening the generation sector to even more competition. It claims this will only drive away foreign investors.

Yeah, right. The current EPIRA contains questionable provisions allowing for cross-ownership between generation and distribution companies. The main reason we have high power rates is because Meralco buys a huge chunk of its electricity supply from its sister companies which charges higher rates.

In a nutshell, this business group wants the government to take its hands off Meralco. The motive? They stand to benefit from the status quo (such as the take-or-pay provisions with IPPs) because they have substantial interests in these IPPs. From Senator Miriam's probing, one member apparently IS a First Gen partner/investor. See? Apparently, the Lopezes have "friends".