The Wasted Medicines

Hole of Justice
by Peter G. Jimenea


The last casualty!


One of the pesky episodes in life of a journalist is to learn that public officials abused the position they are so proud of. More so, in insisting that even with so much smoke there is no fire. They should know that to conceal is one thing, to be silent is another.


This story is about the expired medicines at the warehouse of the Regional Health Office, Field Unit 6 at Mandurriao, Iloilo City. The then Regional Director was Merceditas Cabaneyro, whose rise to the position is doubtful, whether on managerial capability or by political expediency.


Never has there been a government official so derelict and irresolute in duty and responsibility than her. Deliberate or not, lot of poor sickly-people and hospital patients in rural area died for lack of medicine due to her neglect.


There are Rural Health Offices in municipalities that need medicines and other medical aid the government can provide in order to perform according to functions from which they are created for. But why did she keep those medicines from them?


On why the chief occupant of said health office failed to uphold her moral responsibility to the people she is most sorely obliged to serve, only God knows. But for lawyers with smooth mastery of law, her guilt is culpa aquiliana – civil responsibility from which fault or negligence intervene.

The expired medicines inside the cartons filing outside the warehouse when retrieved were mostly vitamins, pain killer and paracetamol which cost no less than P15M. That amount does not include yet the imported items donated by foreigncountries. This is what got us so disgusted about.


The public must know because the one thing we all abhor is not a cheap shot, it’s the taxpayers’ money. What gives us hope in this battle against corruption was the lady prosecutor who promised to bring our findings to the attention of concerned officials for action.


She invited us to join her in probing the officials involved in this mess and in preparation of cases to be filed against the culprits. But the discovery of expired medicines issue which consumed the city for months seems not good for the Court.


We learned from her (now a judge) that an influential politician with strong connection to thepowers-that-be has intervened in behalf of the regional director. Worse, she was also told to refrain from pushing for the investigation of the case, or she will lose her job.


Probably, that person thinks he is a national peacekeeper, an interloper in this local affair of corrupt official and the press. He failed to realize that his critical intervention has given us an impression that he is a kind of person who prefers to accept money than apology!


As expected, the case disappeared in the course of time. The press people who cooperated were rewarded with advertisement contracts and we who did not were intimidated against. Worse, later, we were no longer allowed by the security guards who threaten to shoot if we enter the DOH premises.


Thus, the regional director easily got out of the mess she’s in. But her mindset syndrome reeks with domino theory and resurfaced to shock us again. After two years since the discovery of those expired medicines, a new scam suddenly occurred to occupy the airlanes.


A certain Ms. Nona Flores, Nurse IV of the DOH who conducted a new inventory of medicines reported that over seven million pesos worth of expired medicines was again discovered at the warehouse of the Regional Health Office-6.


But the law is so broad for a grasp. Jurisprudence dictates, affirmantis est probare – he who affirms must prove. So, all we can do is to look at each other this way and that asking; “the investigation was delayed but the decision was prepared, how?” It is written though, qui peccat ebrius luat sobrius- he who offends when drunk shall be punished when sober!


Well, one way to curb corruption is to destroy the system that fosters it. But to date no law had been passed by Congress to confront this lingering mess of society. Why? Lawmakers are certain too, that fighting it that way, endangers them to become….. see the title!

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