(Following is the transcript of the segment "Analysis by Winnie Monsod" which aired on News on Q on August 17, 2009. Prof. Winnie Monsod is the resident analyst of News on Q which airs weeknights at 9:30 p.m. on Q Channel 11.)

President Gloria Arroyo has left the country around 72 times since she assumed the presidency in 2001. That's an average of 8 trips a year.

She in fact has spent almost ten percent of her time abroad, because out of the 3,125 days she has been in office as of August 11, at least 310 days have been spent out of the country.




During this time, she visited 40 foreign countries, 21 of them at least twice and has managed to visit the United States at least once a year.

Actually, she has visited the US a total of 15 times in the past 8 and a half years.

As with practically everything else she does, her peripatetic tendency has been criticized – with her critics wondering why, when the country is pressed for financial resources, so much of the Filipino taxpayers' money is being used for what is considered an unnecessary expense.

The countries the President has visited are either our major trading and investment partners, major oil suppliers, major employers of our overseas Filipino workers, and major sources of foreign assistance or some combination of the above.

And generally, the more important the country in these categories, the larger the number of visits: the US has been visited 15 times (although attending the UN General Assembly in New York is one of the reasons why), China 9 times, Japan 7 times, and the major ASEAN member countries anywhere from three to five times.

Could she have done this with virtual visits? Yes. Certainly, but it would not be as effective as pressing flesh, as it were.

Nothing like a warm, personal relationship that allows you to then pick up the phone and call your foreign counterpart to ask a favor or the head of a large corporation to invite it to set up shop in the Philippines.

What benefits have been reaped from these visits?

It's really hard to estimate the marginal benefits that arise from her trips abroad, or distinguish them from what would have occurred anyway.

I do not doubt, however, that the expected reduction in overseas employment as a result of the global crisis did not come to pass partially because of the President's visits.

And, certainly, the release or pardon of Filipino workers in jail in those countries has to be attributed to the personal diplomacy she exercised. Let us give credit where it is due.

Having listed the benefits, now let us focus on the costs.

And this is where the criticism against the President's trips do have basis.

We have data on the expenditures of the Office of the President on foreign travel from 2002 up to 2007.

What can we glean from these data?

In terms of US dollars, which we use to remove the influence of changes in exchange rates, the cost per day of the President's trips rose by almost six times in that five-year period.

From $45,880 per day in 2002 to $255,600 in 2007.

That horrendous increase cannot be attributed to inflation – hotel and airline and food prices in dollar terms cannot have increased by more than 20 percent in that period and certainly not by 600 percent.

So the only explanation is that a size of her official entourage must have increased tremendously, or that their per diems must have gone up enormously, or both. Now, that is totally unnecessary.

In other words, even if she did not pay for that $20,000 dinner in Le Cirque in New York, and I am morally certain she did not pay for it, she still has a lot of explaining to do.

$45,000 to $250,000 per day in five years. Excuse me.

Bottom line? Continue the trips, but cut down on the expenses. How? Don't use it for rewarding political favors or in exchange for them.

In the future, I think the President should report not only the benefits that these visits bring, but also within two weeks, the cost that they entail – so that the Filipino people, who are not dumb, can judge for themselves whether these trips are worth it.

(Following is the transcript of the segment "Analysis by Winnie Monsod" which aired on News on Q on August 14, 2009. Prof. Winnie Monsod is the resident analyst of News on Q which airs weeknights at 9:30 p.m. on Q Channel 11.)


There is no question that cheaper and quality medicines for the Filipino people are a consummation devoutly to be wished, and the enactment into law of RA 9502 in June 2008 is certainly an accomplishment of this administration.

Chapter 3 of RA 9502 deals with the price regulation of drugs and medicines, giving power to the President to impose, upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Health, these maximum retail prices.

This was supposed to be a last resort, to be taken only if the pharmaceutical companies refuse to voluntarily reduce the prices of very important drugs and medicines, which studies had shown to be highly overpriced in the Philippines, compared with the prices of the same drugs in various countries in Asia, including Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia and India.

But, the drug companies made no move to reduce their prices, and only did so when it was clear that the DOH meant business.

But their response came so late, and they dragged their feet so much that President Arroyo went ahead and signed the executive order imposing maximum retail prices on 5 medicines

Maybe, my threshold of satisfaction is too high.

But, I don't see why cutting the prices of certain medicines by fifty percent should be considered such an achievement by our health officials.

Why? Well, some of those medicines cost in the Philippines ten times what they cost elsewhere.

So, why should I be happy if they now cost 5 times what they cost elsewhere?

It is therefore sincerely to be hoped that these drug companies are forced to bring their prices down some more – not by law or fiat – but by making the local market, dominated by multinational companies, a contestable one; which means, by the exercise of parallel importations, where the cheaper, same quality goods are imported from abroad.

The government should show the way by making these parallel importations, so that the companies are forced to bring down their prices some more than that, or lose their share of the market.

And while we are on the subject, the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines has threatened to declare a "hospital holiday," where they will only accept emergency cases, unless the government gives them more time to sell their inventory of medicines, bought at the old prices, before having to cut their prices.

They claim that they are facing financial losses that will force them to retrench their employees or even close down.

That is nothing more than blackmail.

This seems to be a favorite ploy of the PHAP to get what they want, because they threatened the same thing about two years ago. It is irresponsible and unwarranted.

Irresponsible, because it jeopardizes the health and well-being of citizens, and it is unwarranted because:

(a) these hospitals knew since June of 2008, when the bill was passed into law, that maximum retail prices could be imposed and they should have been planning ahead on their inventories since then

(b) they were in on the consultations that were being conducted by the DOH and never said a word, and

(c) it is impossible that they have such large inventories of costly medicines

Why? No hospital worth its salt would tie its money down on large medicine inventories, particularly when, the turnaround time between order and delivery is only 24 hours!

In any case, I challenge the members of the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines to open their books for audit by the COA or certified public accountants from the NGO community, who can then attest to the accuracy or inaccuracy of their claims.