Contraceptives in DOH hands to expire soon

What is holding so long the Food and Drug Administration from certifying that contraceptives for distribution by the Department of Health, especially the oral pill and Implanon, are not abortifacients or do not cause abortion? The Supreme Court only needs this certification to lift the temporary restraining order suspending the implementation of the “contraceptive provisions” in the Reproductive Health Act, which was signed into law in 2012.

We are running out of time: Stocks of pills and Implanon are so close to their expiration dates, and we don’t want to go through the experience of previous administrations, where drugs in the hands of the DOH, worth billions of pesos, went to waste because they had expired.

ELISEO R. REBLANDO,
past president, Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines