Tobacco industry's 'massacre' of Filipinos

FOR the tobacco industry the current smokers are already dead. Philippine Health Undersecretary Alexander Padilla recently made this startling statement. And with the "demise" of current smokers, the industry has now set its sight on its new "fatalities": the young and the women.

To stop the tobacco industry's "massacre" of the Filipinos, a total of 39 government agencies together with other tobacco control advocates from the civic and civil organisations banded together in October to keep smoking at bay with a battle cry — NO DEAL WITH THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY.

This is not the first time the Philippine government has tried to put up a fight against the billion-dollar industry. National laws and city ordinances have been passed to convince people to kick the habit and regulate smoking in public places.

There are at least two national laws: The Clean Air Act of 1999 (Republic Act 8749) and the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003 (RA 9211). Section 24 of the Clean Air Act says it is unlawful to smoke inside public buildings or any enclosed public place, vehicles, and "any enclosed area outside of one's private residence, private place of work on any duly designated smoking area".

The Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003, meanwhile, bans smoking in enclosed public areas and requires establishments to designate a smoking area.

Local government units had also put up a brave fight to stub out the cigarettes. There are about 450 local anti-smoking by-laws as of 2004. Some of them were in effect even before the Tobacco Regulation Act was passed in 2003. The City of Manila, the Philippine capital, had its first anti-smoking ordinance in 1969.

But sadly, the Philippines is not known for strict enforcement of its laws and ordinances and thus the quiet "carnage" perpetrated by the tobacco industry persists until now. Moreover, there are no national laws prohibiting minors from buying cigarettes. In fact, many vendors of cigarettes are children.

Smoking in the Philippines is among the highest in the world today. In 2008, the World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society ranked the Philippines as the ninth highest for adult male smokers and the 16th highest for adult female smokers.

Even among the world's youth, the country is among the heaviest tobacco users with Filipino girls occupying second place and Filipino boys in the fourth place in 2003.

The 2007 Global Youth Tobacco Survey revealed that 22 per cent of Filipino teenagers or one in five high school students aged 13 to 15 currently smoke. This reflects an increase of 30 per cent over the past two years.

Cigarette prices in the Philippines are among the lowest in Asia, and although government revenue from tobacco taxes is about Peso 23 billion ($700 million) annually, the health and the social cost of smoking could be 17 times more than the government revenues from cigarettes.

According to a 2006 study on poverty and tobacco-use, the national government spends Peso 276 billion every year for the treatment of Filipinos suffering from four major diseases related to smoking.

In addition, the average Filipino household earning about Philippine peso 5,100 monthly spends approximately 2.6 per cent of the household income on tobacco, which is more than they spend on education (1.6 per cent) and health (1.3 per cent).

Ten Filipinos die by the hour due to tobacco-related diseases, and this fact cannot be extinguished by measly donations by tobacco companies to their charity of choice. What is a few million pesos to a billion-dollar earning company at the expense of its Filipino victims?

On top of the harmful effects of the tobacco-use and exposure, Filipino government officials must definitely open its eyes wide to the tobacco industry's treachery and deception.

Tobacco companies trick government officials, politicians and the media into thinking they are the "good Samaritan" by doing their bit for the society or upholding their "corporate social responsibility".

All too often, tobacco industry executives are photographed with national and local government executives holding a cheque donation or laying the cement for the school's basketball court or planting a tree to promote environmental projects.

And in doing so, the "good guys", more often than not, get their rewards as there are also times when the government agencies award tobacco companies for its prompt tax payments.

The duplicity has to stop and the Filipinos' only hope for the "dead" to be resurrected and for the teenagers and the women to escape the "slaughter" is to say "No" against any deal with the charlatan and a killer otherwise known as the tobacco industry. The Brunei Times