Transcript of Senator Mar Roxas' interview in
ANC's 'Newsmakers' with Ricky Carandang (Excerpts)

On JPEPA:

Additional hearings on JPEPA when Congress resumes session

MAR: The treaty right now is hanging in the balance. We scheduled two more hearings. The chair Senator Miriam Santiago said in fact it was only going to be five hearings ending yesterday. But in order to flesh out all these other issues, we expect two more hearings in the coming weeks, and hopefully we'll be able to get a better picture.

Government's stand on JPEPA's constitutionality

MAR: It's natural they would assert that. Unfortunately yesterday when there was citing of chapter and verse and specific provisions, the government panel was only responding in generalities. The legal eagles of the Senate, Senator Angara, Senator Defensor-Santiago, Senator Enrile, were all there and they were saying you have to do a better job. If you seek to challenge what the oppositors are saying, then you must refute this in chapter and verse also, because the assertions were very specific, relating to specific provisions in the treaty as well as citing article, chapter and verse in the Constitution and in our law.

On the supposed 'lost opportunity cost' in investments, in rejecting JPEPA

MAR: I think that [investors] go to [investor-friendly] places not because they have treaties. They go to these places because there is certainty in policy direction. They go to these places because of labor productivity infrastructure, lower power costs and so on and so forth. The treaty puts into some sort of framework the rights of the investor, which in many instances are already enshrined in laws and in our Constitution. There is freedom from expropriation for example. I think there is going to be an opportunity cost, but this is not going to be real as much as the cost to us if we are now unable to protect and defend our ability to shape our national development.

On SB 1658, the Quality Affordable Medicines bill:

On the House bill's must-carry provision

MAR: I understand from the House that they have a provision there, a 'must-carry' provision, that says these cheaper medicines brought in from abroad must be carried in the butikas. I'm very attracted to that idea, because these medicines may come in, but if they're stacked in a warehouse, there won't be any change in prices. So maybe that is something good, and we will certainly be open to incorporating that, if in fact it is in the House version.

Wouldn't the market take care of that itself?

MAR: There is so much concentration of power in the pharmaceutical industry that if for example I was one of the pharmaceutical companies, I can tell the butika, 'if you want my other products, don't carry that ha.' In which case they might not carry it. Let me use San Miguel products as an example, not that they're doing anything. As an example, 'Ah, you want to sell San Miguel beer, then you must also carry' whatever it sells, Coca-Cola, etc. So that's the same thing. 'Ah, you want to carry Prozac, Ponstan or whatever the medicine is, if you want to carry that, you have to carry our other products.' So there is such concentrated market power, that simply having an affordable alternative may not work in and of itself.

Price control

MAR: In the Senate bill, what is already a power given to the executive to fix prices, we have brought that in. In the Price Act, under certain circumstances, upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Trade and Secretary of Health, the President might fix prices. So what we're doing is taking those provisions and move them into the Senate version, reiterating the executive branch's power to fix prices under these circumstances. We looked at the circumstances and said let's clarify that an emergency is not just a calamity or an earthquake or a storm, but an emergency includes an assessment by the executive that we have 3 million diabetics in the country, we have 8 million pre-diabetics, that constitutes an emergency. So therefore diabetes medicines ought to have fixed prices by the executive branch. That's a tool that we give the executive branch so that there's a hierarchy of tools. First competition. 'Ah, it's not working.' Then we go to the next level, price control.

On ZTE hearings/executive privilege:

The issue of executive privilege hasn't been brought to the Supreme Court yet.

MAR: I've consulted the lawyers on this. What they say is it has not yet ripened to a so-called 'justiciable' issue. The issues have not been joined, that's why they feel nothing should be brought up to the Supreme Court. But eventually, it will get there. There must be a rejection by the committee on a vote that we reject the invocation, we see the invocation as improper, or the invocation here deals with matters not subject to what executive privilege can legally or properly be applied to. And so therefore once that's joined we now go to the Supreme Court.

This executive privilege is a very, very complex subject matter. I was in the Cabinet. All the Cabinet members must be free to discuss policy decisions, not be afraid that whatever they say there will be broadcast outside. That's the essence of executive privilege. But it is one thing to discuss policy, how and what do we do, what's the best way of going about this it's one thing discussing that, it's another thing to be discussing a bribery attempt. I think that is where the issue will be decided upon, what is covered by, and proper use of executive privilege.