Duterte repeats warning: Don’t buy medicines at sari-sari stores

The sale of over-the-counter medicines in sari-sari stores may soon be a thing of the past. (Graphic design by MARIE FARO / INQUIRER.net)

MANILA, Philippines — Don’t buy medicines at sari-sari stores, or your ailment might even get worse.

President Rodrigo Duterte repeated on Monday this reminder of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in his taped weekly “Talk to the People” briefing.

Earlier, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año reported that the DILG had issued a memorandum circular urging local governments to pass ordinances banning sari-sari and similar stores from selling medicines.

“I will repeat: Don’t buy any medical whatever — I cannot mention the medication, it would not be proper — but you might buy at one time is something that drugstores have thrown away because they’re expired,” Duterte said in Filipino.

“And they got passed on to a sari-sari store. Ah, if you buy there, you will have a headache if you take that. And your stomach will ache and your pocket, and then you end up in the hospital and that’s another prescription. That’s the truth when you buy there. That’s what will happen,” he said.

Duterte said that local government officials, especially barangay chiefs, should remind their constituents not to buy medicines from sari-sari stores.

Last Thursday, Año issued this advisory to local governments to look into reports by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that some sari-sari stores and online shops on online shopping applications had been caught selling fake medicines.

Early in January 2022, the country saw a quick spike in COVID-19 infections due to the Omicron variant, which experts said was more transmissible than the Delta variant.

The increase in cases, which were said to be milder than the Delta variant, led a lot of Filipinos to rely on self-medicaton using over-the-counter drugs like paracetamol and other analgesics to recover from COVID-19.

However, the increase in demand also meant that scrupulous groups found an opportunity to spread fake medicines in the market.

On Jan. 11, Bureau of Customs agents seized in a raid over P30 million worth of fake medicines — including common drugs used to treat mild COVID-19 cases.

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