Sen. Pia Cayetano cites ‘legal quandary’ in Vape Bill okay

SENATOR Pia Cayetano is prodding President Marcos Jr. not to act on the enrolled bill on vaping, airing concern it could face legal challenge amid warnings on health risks.

“I am submitting this letter ad cautelam to raise substantial and procedural issues arising from the enrolled bill of the Vaporized Nicotine and Non-nicotine Products Regulation,” Cayetano said in a letter to President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., which she furnished the media.

The Vape Bill, she recalled, was approved by the 18th Congress, which had its final adjournment on May 31, 2022. The term of its members, both from the House of Representatives and twelve of the members from the Senate, had also ended on June 30, 2022, the same time President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s term as President ended.

“Because President Duterte neither affixed his signature to the enrolled bill of the Vape Bill, nor exercised presidential veto over the same, before his term ended,” Cayetano, a lawyer, cautioned. “We are placed in a legal quandary of having a bill passed by a Congress, composed of different members, that has been rendered functus officio by its final adjournment, and submitted to the President whose term has ended, being signed into law by a new President.”

She warned that, “This would create a serious constitutional issue on the validity of a ‘law’ enacted by a Congress without official authority.”

Cayetano added “as a health advocate, lawyer, and member of Congress, I am of the sentiment that we should avoid technicalities such as these as much as possible, when courts would be constrained to rule on the laws that we make.”

Even if the procedural and possible constitutional issues were set aside, Cayetano believes that President Marcos “should veto the Vape Bill based on the detrimental effects it would have on the health of our fellow Filipinos, as warned by medical associations and health advocates, former DOH (Department of Health) secretaries, and concerned government agencies—doh, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Finance, and Department of Education.”

These hazards are apparent, she stressed, “from the changes the Vape Bill will bring about in our legal and regulatory framework” on the industry of vapes and heated tobacco products (HTPS).

The senator pointed out the proponents of the Vape Bill anchor their position on: (1) vapes and HTPS as being effective cessation tools from cigarette smoking; and (2) the need to regulate the industry.

She reminded, however, these arguments are “fatally flawed “because rather than to regulate, the Vape bill actually removes the protective measures already found under Republic Act No. 11467 or the ‘Sin Tax Reform Act of 2020,’ which was enacted into law last January 22, 2020.

At the same time, the senator pointed out further that the Vape Bill, as proposed, “overturns key safeguard provision in the Sin Tax Reform Act, which, she said, provided stricter regulations to protect public health.