Philippines: Congress Urged to Pass Law Requiring Picture Warnings on Cigarette Packs

Source from:  GMANews.TV (ph)  01/15/2013

A group of public health advocates has called on Congress to build on its "momentum" and pass a law that will require cigarette companies to place graphic health warnings on their product packages.

In a statement, the non-governmental group HealthJustice Philippines expressed optimism that bills on graphic health warnings pending in Congress will finally be passed after lawmakers enacted the "sin tax" law—a legislation that imposes higher taxes on tobacco and alcohol products—last year.

"As with the sin tax law, government and civil society should work together to get this passed soon. The graphic health warning bill is a necessary complement to all other tobacco control measures," lawyer and HealthJustice managing director Irene Reyes said in a media release on Friday.

She added that passing measures on graphic health warning will make the Philippines "credible as a rising nation."

Reyes' group made this call after Indonesia—the country with the highest number of smokers in Southeast Asia—enacted a law requiring graphic health warnings on cigarette packs.

A report from The Jakarta Globe said Indonesian President Bambang Yudhoyono signed the legislation last December 24.

The Philippine Tobacco Institute (PTI), however, has earlier said that printing these health warnings will violate the country's Tobacco Regulation Act (TRA) of 2003.

Section 13 (g) of this law states that "no other printed warnings, except the health warning and the message required (by the law) shall be placed on cigarette packages."

TRO vs. graphic health warnings

The Philippines is a signatory to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which obliges state-parties to pass a law on graphic health warnings on cigarette packs.

The country, however, has not yet passed any law on these picture warnings. The House version of the bill is still pending at the committee level. The Senate version, meanwhile, is still up for plenary debates.

In 2010, the Department of Health issued an order requiring graphic health warnings on cigarette packs. Tobacco firms, however, questioned the order in court and succeeded in getting a temporary restraining order against the directive.

Reyes said passing a law on graphic health warnings on cigarette packs will "illustrate how horribly smoking will make you suffer in the long run."

"They [health warnings] strip away any false notions of glamour that tobacco companies try to project onto their products," she said.

At present, tobacco companies in the Philippines are required to print text health warnings on cigarette packages.

A study by the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance in 2010, however, said that Filipinos preferred graphic health warnings over text warnings, "because graphic warning aids understanding."  Enditem