15,000 BnB outlets all over the country today
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo launched the Botika ng Barangay (BnB) program shortly after assuming the presidency in 2001, her own version of the community based drugstore.
The program aims to improve access to medicines and promote the use of generic drugs as cheaper alternatives to expensive branded medicines.
One of the most common drugs sold over the counter is the headache and fever tablet paracetamol, which cost higher in commercial outlets but at the government-run Botika nga Barangay (BnB), paracetamol costs at a lesser price.
In Negros Occidental, there are about 341 Botika ng Barangay all over the province. Almost all the municipalities and cities have Botika ng Barangay located in various remote barangays.
Funded with close to half a billion pesos over the past years, medicines prices in BnB have not only been cut in half but they have nosedived by as much as 62 percent compared to branded medicine prices for the 25 million Filipinos now patronizing the grassroots-level drugstores, Botika ng Barangay. (PIA-OPS/cad)
