IN July 2014 health advocates and antitobacco lobbyists were ecstatic over the passage of a law requiring tobacco firms to affix their cigarette packs with pictures showing the adverse effects of smoking.
This was the graphic health warning (GHW) law, or Republic Act 10643, mainly authored by Sen. Pia Cayetano.
Now, almost two years later, the interagency panel tasked to draft the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) has yet to issue and formally publish the contents of the IRR. The law fixes the date of its implementation on March 3, 2016.
The Department of Health (DOH) and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) spearheaded the IRR drafting committee.
Consultations on the IRR were completed in May 2015 and the routing of the final draft copy for review and signing of each member departments started October of last year.
So far, only five of the nine-member interagency panel have signed the IRR document and four agencies, namely, the departments of Science and Technology, Education, Finance and the DTI, have yet to affix their signatures.
Sans the IRR, tobacco companies are already preparing for the March deadline. Local manufacturers will need permits and approvals from regulatory bodies (Bureau of Internal Revenue, National Tobacco Administration, Bureau of Customs) to commence production of packs with pictorials. For importers, they will need the permits to bring in the finished goods to the country and for its subsequent clearance from the Customs. Sadly, all these government agencies would not issue the permits and approvals without the IRR.
Though the law provides that the nonissuance of the IRR would not prevent the law coming into force, regulatory and administrative requirements are facts of life that businesses have to contend with. No IRR, no permits—that’s how these agencies operate.
The Philippine Tobacco Institute (PTI) has already called the attention of the DOH and the DTI, including agency members of the Graphic Health Warnings IRR Committee, on the negative impact of the continued delay.
The group, in a letter addressed to the two lead agencies, said tobacco activities would be disrupted and excise tax collections would suffer, even affecting the law’s mandated beneficiaries like the DOH, Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and the tobacco-producing provinces.
Tobacco companies need at least six months to produce and bring their compliant products to their customers, including the engraving of the cylinders to reflect the new pack design bearing the GHW.
It is ironic that barely a month away, it is the tobacco players that are pushing the government to implement the law by issuing the IRR. Already buffeted with a cocktail of regulations—from yearly increases in their sin taxes to forcing them to vandalize their products with hideous illustrations of disfigured body parts and other sordid pictures—the tobacco industry just wants to comply with the new law the soonest.
They don’t oppose the law nor are they thinking of delaying it. They just want its efficient enforcement starting with the timely issuance of the IRR.
Peace in Mindanao: How do we attain it?
Former Tawi-Tawi Gov. Al Tillah was our guest at the recent Saturday Forum@ Annabel’s.
Since the Bangsamoro basic law is dead in the water—almost, as the legislature cannot possibly pass it with the start next week of the official campaign period—Tillah says that to achieve peace in southern Philippines, we should consider amending the fundamental law to allow the creation of two federal states in Muslim Mindanao.
One of the two federal states in Muslim Mindanao could be created out of the island-provinces of Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, as well as the Zamboanga provinces, the other for the landlocked provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and neighboring provinces.
For the Tawi-tawi ex-governor, this is the only viable solution to end the fighting in Mindanao and restore peace.
“This government thinks the 1987 Cory Constitution is the Bible, the Koran. It is not. The United States Constitution has been amended several times. Why is it not possible to amend the Constitution to serve the needs of our people and country?” Tillah asked.
Tillah claimed that the Autonomus Region in Muslim Mindanao that President Aquino declared as a “failed experiment”, and which the administration said should be replaced by the proposed Bangsamoro region under the comprehensive peace agreement wth the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), should have been given the chance to work as it is the product of the 1977 Tripoli Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front led by Nur Misuari.
Tillah said he believes Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., if elected vice president in May, could help in solving the Mindanao conflict in the same way that the senator’s father initiated peace talks with the MILF in the late 1970s.
Tillah, who now heads the Parhimpunan sin Islam, or the Islamic Society of the Philippines, which he describes as a non-governmental organizations of the Sulu Sultanate, says he supports the presidential candidacies of Vice President Jejomar C. Binay and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte as he believes they are committed to the pursuit of peace in Mindanao.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.
1 comment
Of course, the tobacco industry is opposed to the law and is attempting to delay its implementation. If it wasn’t, it would have been pushing for the IRR’s timely publication since last year (and not just now). In reality, it made many objections to the law (which is why the law is not a strong as international best practice) and also raised many issues in the development of the IRR, causing its delay over many months.
Now it is even pretending that it cares about the DOH and Philhealth, even if tobacco is a major cause of many thousands of deaths and premature deaths that drain the resources of DOH and PHIC. Please, we weren’t born yesterday.
Btw, tobacco companies have been able to comply with new warnings in as short as three months in other countries.