SEATCA: Tobacco Expo ''Attacks And Insults'' PH, Its Leaders, Its People

Source from:  InterAksyon.com 03/22/2013

The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) denounced Wednesday the staging of Protobex/Inter-tabac Asia in Manila which runs till Friday, March 22, deeming it a direct assault on Asia by the tobacco industry as it is held in the Philippines, base of the World Health Organization's Western Pacific Regional Office (WHO-WPRO).

This is the second consecutive year that Protobex/Inter-tabac Asia - a regional gathering of tobacco industry players - is being held in Pasay City.

The Philippine government, as host to the WHO-WPRO, must take Protobex/Inter-Tabac Asia's arrival as both an attack and an insult, SEATCA said in a statement. "Anywhere tobacco and smoking are promoted, government efforts to protect and promote the health and welfare of their citizens are spat upon. No government national or local government should promote nor partner with tobacco industry players as it will end up promoting their harmful products, and find itself making a mockery of their own principles and programs for public health."

There is every reason for every Philippine leader to reject Protobex, added the Bangkok-based regional NGO, noting that every hour, tobacco use kills at least 10 Filipinos. Officials, it said, "should be doing their utmost to save every one of those lives lost. Every tobacco-related death is preventable."

"Illustrating and underscoring how the tobacco industry respects nothing other than its death-laden profits, last year's Protobex/Inter-tabac Asia violated a Pasay City ordinance that bans smoking in enclosed airconditioned places (http://bit.ly/V12EGz. Further, Protobex/Inter-tabac organizers "lied about their utter disregard for Philippine laws, claiming on their website that the Pasay City local government 'had issued a waiver to the organizers allowing smoking in the show venue'. Pasay City Local Government and its Administrator Atty. Dennis Acorda made it clear that there was no such waiver issued," according to SEATCA.

Protobex/Inter-tabac Asia "represents a deceitful entity that places itself above the law and champions its own industry delegates - the merchants of smoking and death. Governments should take such businesses to task," said the tobacco-control alliance.

It stressed that the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC), to which the Philippines is a Party, recognizes the "fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry's interests and public health."

SEATCA joined the Department of Health CHD-NCR, local government units of Metro Manila, the Metro Manila Development Authority and Philippine civil society in condemning the event. SEATCA allied itself with the FCTC Alliance - Philippines (FCAP), HealthJustice, Inc., New Vois Association of the Philippines, and the Philippine Cancer Society, among others, in their stand that there can be "no deal with the tobacco Industry". Enditem