The Philippines Health Secretary appointed by the  new president, Benigno Aquino III, is a strong supporter of allowing Filipinos to sell kidneys to foreigners.

Enrique Ona, 71, is one of the country’s leading transplant surgeons. He was director of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute for 11 years, and the president of the Transplantation Society of the Philippines since 1989.

Shortly after joining the administration, Dr Ona announced that he was opposed to the total ban on organ transplants from Filipino donors to foreigners. He also said he was open to giving a gratuity package to donors, which could go as high as P150,000 Pesos (approximately US$3,200). A few days later he was forced to backtrack, saying that “the ban stays as of now”.

Under President Arroyo transplant tourism was restricted, but Dr Ona fought tooth and nail to liberalise organ donation. He wrote a letter in 2008 to his international critics in which he argued: “In our part of the world, transplantation is the only avenue of our people to escape certain death, and the use of living non-related donors is only one of the strategies we use… We are in the receiving line of the developed world’s problem in kidney donor shortage which cannot be solved by the blanket prohibition you [in the developed world] propose for us to adopt.”

Dr Ona’s proposal was opposed by Dr. Alberto Chua of the Philippine Society of Nephrology. "These establishments offer P150,000 in gratuity package for donors. If I was a tricycle driver who only earns P3,000 a month, maybe I would sell my own kidney to get that P150,000," he said.  ~  Philippine Star, July 7; abs-cbnNEWS.com, July 2;Gulf News, July 14