The pharmaceutical situation in the Philippines.

Medicines, being regulated goods, cannot be treated as mere trade commodities but should be managed as a health utility. Makers and sellers of drugs have to be licensed, and the ways drugs are advertised and prescribed must be regulated. But enforcement of the rules is weak. In part, the reason may be that personalities take precedence over issues. This is important in the context of this editorial, and should be read as a form of selfcriticism and the desire to effect a paradigm shift. We must not continue with “business as usual.”