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, whom

we doubt if her rise to the position is by 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 for them to perform according to their functions from

which they are created. 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, cost no

less than P15M. That amount does not include yet those from imported ones donated by foreign

countries. 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 the

case 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 the

powers-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, we

are 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 that

reeks with domino theory 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 solving it that way, endangers them to become….. see the title!