Counterfeit medicines

Dear PAO,

I am an employee of a retail drug store and I discovered that the owners were converting some
generic medicines into branded ones by transferring their labels. Can the owners of the drug
store be held liable for this?

Sincerely yours,

Salome

Dear Salome,

For your information, the law that addresses your situation is Section 4 (d) of Republic Act 8203
or the Special Law on Counterfeit Drugs:

“SECTION 4 Prohibited Acts. – The following acts are declared unlawful and therefore
prohibited;
d) Photocopying, duplicating, altering, printing, transferring, obliterating or removing the
approved label or any part thereof, lawfully belonging to another person, for the purpose of using
such label or a part thereof on any counterfeit drug: Provided, That if the person who committed
any of the acts enumerated in this paragraph and the person who used the labels produced
thereby are not one and the same person and the former had knowledge of the purpose for which
the labels are intended, the former shall also be liable under this Act notwithstanding the failure
of the latter to achieve the intended purposes;”

The same law provides a penalty for non-compliance of the same, viz:

“SECTION 8. Penalties. – The commission of any of the acts prohibited under Sections 4 and 6
of this Act shall be punished by:
xxx xxx xxx
b) imprisonment of six (6) years and one (1) day, but not more than ten (10) years or a fine of not
less than One hundred thousand pesos (P100,000) but not more than Five hundred thousand
pesos (P500,000) or both such imprisonment and fine at the discretion of the court in any other
case mentioned in Section 4 hereof; ”

It is clear from the cited provision that photocopying, duplicating or transferring approved label
or any part thereof, lawfully belonging to another person, for the purpose of using such label or a
part thereof on any counterfeit drug is a violation of the law, and anyone who may be found
liable may be penalized by a fine or imprisonment or both. In your situation, the drug store
owners may be held liable for transferring the label of the medicines they are selling and
misrepresenting the same as branded when in fact it is generic medicines. Thus, the owners if
proven guilty, may be meted with a penalty of fine or imprisonment or both, depending on the
discretion of the court.