MeTA 17: CHAT General Assembly, March 2014

Last March 14, 2014, the Coalition for Health Advocacy and Transparency (CHAT) held its General Assembly this year at Dolce Latte Restaurant, Quezon City. Minimal Government Thinkers is among the original charter members of CHAT when a Civil Society Mapping was held in January 2009 at Diamond Hotel in Manila, two days before the 3-days MeTA National Forum, same venue.

CHAT is an alliance of health-focused civil society organizations (CSOs), people's organizations and public policy research organizations or think tanks (including IBON Foundation and MG Thinkers) that works with the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) Philippines as its civil society partner. It is a big coalition as some member organizations are themselves alliances or coalitions of their own. Like AGAP (Ayos na Gamot sa Abot-kayang Presyo) and 3CPNet (Cut the Cost, Cut the Pain Network).

The first speaker was Dr. Virgie Ala, former DOH-NCPAM Director, and she gave a health situationer of the country. I came late that day and was lucky to catch perhaps the second half of her presentation. Second speaker was Atty. Paula "Pau" Tanqueing of AGAP and she discussed various activities that  CHAT and its member organizations have undertaken, 

Ms. Cecile Sison of Philippine HealthWatch Initiatives, also of MeTA Philippines, discussed the covenant of CHAT. Then nice lunch. 

It was a working lunch, participants were paired and we discussed and suggested steps the alliance can take to re-engage and strengthen its role and advocacies, facilitated by Dr. Elmer Soriano. I did not speak during the open foru, and I did not stay long, after lunch I headed to the airport to catch my flight for Cebu City. I was going to give a talk at the University of San Carlos (USC) the next day about government price control and mandatory discounts for medicines policies. See Drug Price Control 39: Presentation at USC, Cebu, March 2014.

Despite some disagreement on certain health policies with some key members of CHAT, I like the coalition. I am the "odd-man out" in most cases for advocating less government (but not zero government) intervention in many health policies, while majority of member-NGOs support more government involvement. Still, members learn to tolerate such divergence in ideas.

Photo credit: Ian Nuevo of MeTA Philippines Secretariat.

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See also:
Health Transparency 13: MeTA International Visit to Manila, April 16, 2013
Health Transparency 14: IMS-CHAT Meeting, April 18, 2013, Friday, July 12, 2013 
MeTA 15: Forum 2014 on Healthcare Ethics and Transparency, January 30, 2014 

MeTA 16: Day 1 of Conference 2014, February 11, 2014 

Drug Price Control 35: DOH Procurement Price and Lobbying for Another Price Coercion, June 29, 2013 

UHC 19: Health is a Right, Health is a Responsibility, September 19, 2013

Health Transparency 14: IMS-CHAT Meeting

The Coalition for Health Advocacy and Transparency (CHAT) is the umbrella organization of health and research NGOs and think tanks that gathered during the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA)-sponsored CSOs Mapping in January 2009. Many of the health NGOs there are coalition themselves of other community and sectoral organizations. CHAT is affiliated with MeTA Philippines and is considered the civil society arm or partner of the latter.

Last week, April 12, 2013, the International MeTA Secretariat (IMS) had a half day meeting with NGO leaders that composed CHAT. About one-half of the organizations within CHAT were represented, good attendance. The IMS were composed of Tim Reed, Executive Director of Health Action International (HAI), Ms. Renee Vasbiner, Administrative Coordinator of MeTA Secretariat, also of HAI, and Ms. Deirdre Dimancesco. Technical Officer of Medicines, Access and Rational Use, Department of Essential Medicines and Health Products, WHO Geneva HQ. 

CHAT was led by former Bulacan Gov. Roberto "Obet" Pagdanganan and Cecile Sison of HealthWatch. Gov. Obet and Cecile are also the Chairman and Secretary General of MeTA Philippines, respectively. The big coalitions within CHAT are the Ayos na Gamot sa Abot-kayang Presyo (AGAP, or good medicines at affordable price), Cut the Cost Cut the Pain Network (3CPNet) and Medical Action Group (MAG), Woman Health, Health Action Information Network (HAIN) and COPAP, the organization of senior citizens. Everyone was given the floor to introduce themselves and the NGOs that they represent, what they do and who are their main constituency.

I introduced Minimal Government Thinkers, Inc. as an independent think tank advocating free market, less government, personal responsibility and rule of law. Our constituency are individuals and groups here and abroad, who read about any free market reforms in the country and in this case, in healthcare policies.

So we have some big NGOs and coalition of NGOs themselves that played very active roles in the enactment of the Cheaper Medicines Law of 2008 or RA 9502, groups and individuals that supported major amendments to the Intellectual Property Code (IPC) of the Philippines like institutionalizing compulsory licensing (CL) of certain patented medicines. And MG Thinkers that advocate respecting IPR as much as possible. So CHAT is a loose coalition and members recognize that.

One advantage, members say, is that there is wide range of discourse and policy options to choose when we discuss certain issues, so they benefit from such diversity of opinions and observations. But one disadvantage is that it is difficult to come up with a consensus stand or statement on some issues, like I advocate less government while many want more government involvement in healthcare. Or possible disagreement in the possible TRIPS Plus provision in the soon to be negotiated EU-Philippines Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

At this point, I spoke. I said that MG Thinkers' involvement in CHAT was a bit interesting. Many if not all of the groups that attended the CSO Mapping workshop were known groups in the IPR debate before RA 9502 was enacted into law. And I was not with them as I was writing many articles defending IPR and my articles were published in many countries like the US, UK, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and even in some Arab countries, published in Arabic, courtesy of MG's international free market network.

That when Ms. Klara Tisocki, then of the EU and now with WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO) invited me to attend the CSO Mapping workshop in January 2009, she has read my name and my articles, and she must have wanted diversity, not monotony, of ideas among CSOs. Klara played a key role in the MeTA formation in the Philippines. And so CHAT was designed to have diversity, to allow some looseness in the umbrella organization. 

On the issue of IPR and medicines, Tim Reed of HAI showed a youtube video produced by HAI Global, about the "EU zoombies" as a result of EU insistence that stronger IPR protection on patented medicines be adopted in various EU negotiations for FTA with different countries.

Then some organization matters were discussed, like key activities for CHAT.

Last April 08, Monday or four days before the meeting with IMS, CHAT also held an internal meeting about issues to discuss. We devise a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis of CHAT. The matrix was shown and discussed by Atty. Paula "Pau" Tanguieng of AGAP. Good presentation, Pau.

It was a good meeting with the IMS, food was nice too.

I keep writing about these meetings and events as many CHAT and MeTA members tell me that although they may not agree with many of my ideas, they still look forward to my analysis, stories and photos. Just one proof that diversity is preferable to monotony. :-)

Cheers guys.
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See also:
Health Transparency 10: Depoliticizing Health, Corporatizing Government Hospitals, September 18, 2012
Health Transparency 11: MeTA Philippines and Multistakeholder Process, September 19, 2012 
Health Transparency 12: MeTA Philippines Dynamism, October 02, 2012 
Health Transparency 13: MeTA International Visit to Manila, April 16, 2013

Health Transparency 12: MeTA Philippines Dynamism

Two weeks ago, I attended the Council meeting of the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) Philippines, September 19 afternoon, at the Unilab's Bayanihan Center Annex. It was a good meeting, lots of topics discussed from many participants, including new members of the expanded Council. The meeting was presided by MeTA Philippines Chairman Roberto "Obet" Pagdanganan.

I like the expansion in membership of the Council to cover more private and health professional associations. I think some if not all of those professional organizations are also happy to belong to this big alliance with one important goal -- to have more transparency and accountability among various players, public and private, in the medicines manufacturing, distribution, retailing, dispensing and policy making.

There were several items on the agenda, among which are the objectives for Year 1 of MeTA 2, that officially started yesterday, October 01, 2012, up to September 30, 2013. See the five goals below. The quarterly activities including their respective budget starting this 4th quarter of 2012 were clearly discussed by MeTA Phils. Secretary General, Cecile Sison.

Aside from conducting studies on certain health and medicines policies of the Philippine government (DOH, PhilHealth, FDA, etc.), there will be a national forum once a year, a quarterly discussion series, as well as regular quarterly meetings.

MeTA, implemented in the Philippines and six other developing countries,  is actually a unique if not strange NGO. It is a non-government organization but funded by government, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), program and project monitoring is done by the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with an international NGO, the Health Action  International (HAI).

Its membership is multisectoral -- from the multilaterals, the national government, health and research NGOs, industry associations, and health professional organizations. From what I observed since I joined the MeTA network through CHAT since 2009, I think the multistakeholder or multi-sectoral approach in dialogue and consensus building is working.

With the huge public debt by the UK and many other European governments and the fiscal bleeding and economic uncertainties that come with it, it is safe to assume that while this project is good, it is highly possible that the UK government will stop funding it in the future. So alternative funding sources have been identified and will be in place next year.

Among these are the incorporation with SEC as a non-stock non-profit organization that has corporate and legal identity to accept grants and donations from various sources, public and private. Another is the collection of annual dues from members: P20,000 for corporate members like industry association and professional organization, P10,000 for associate members like a pharma company or drugstore chain, P5,000 for civil society coalitions like CHAT, P5,000 for individual members, and P2,000 for associate members from civil society. Minimal Government Thinkers will fall under the last category and will pay P2,000 next year.

These rates are actually low considering the various research activities, regular discussion fora, regular meetings and community work each year. Well, there are donations to come, both in cash and in kind, from various sources.

The current officers of the MeTA Philippines Council are:


ROBERTO M. PAGDANGANAN Chairman
JOSE MARIA A. OCHAVE Vice Chairman
CECILIA C. SISON Secretary-General
NORMITA D. LEYESA Treasurer
ALBERTO G. ROMUALDEZ, JR Senior Adviser
REINER W. GLOOR Trustee
KENNETH Y. HARTIGAN-GO Trustee
PAULA MAE B. TANQUIENG Trustee


The corporate members at the moment are:

1. Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP)
2. Philippine Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry (PCPI)
3. Drugstores Association of the Philippines (DSAP)
4. Philippine Medical Association (PMA)
5. Philippine College of Physicians (PCP)
6. Philippine Society of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology (PSECP)
7. Philippine Pharmacists Association (PPhA)
8. Association of Philippine Medical Colleges Foundation, Inc. (APMCFI)
9. Philippine Hospital Association (PHA)
10. Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAPI)
11. Coalition for Health Advocacy and Transparency (CHAT)

No government agency, national or multilateral, is a corporate member

All of the above have the power to vote and be voted while associate and individual members do not have such rights and power. The latter can attend and participate in the various meetings though. Fair arrangement.

I am excited to see this development and dynamism. Someday MeTA Philippines can evolve into a largely privately-funded and sustained organization. Which is the essence of civil society -- a state of society where the citizens are mature, free and responsible enough to manage their personal, household and community lives via more volunteerism and the least government coercion involved.
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See also:
Health Transparency 7: DOH Advisory Council, CHAT, June 04, 2012
Health Transparency 8: Advisory Council on RA 9502, June 11, 2012
Health Transparency 9: Physician Misdiagnosis, Dispensing Medicines, July 20, 2012
Health Transparency 10: Depoliticizing Health, Corporatizing Government Hospitals, September 18, 2012
Health Transparency 11: MeTA Philippines and Multistakeholder Process, September 19, 2012