Philippines approves warning labels for cigarette packaging
MANILA, Philippines — Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, a known smoker, has signed a law requiring tobacco companies to put graphic health warnings on cigarette packs in a country where tens of thousands of people die every year from tobacco-linked diseases, an official said Sunday.
Aquino signed the law Friday “to effectively instil health consciousness through graphic health warnings on tobacco products,” presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma said. With the law, the Philippines joins more than 40 other nations and territories that have adopted similar regulations and brought the battle against smoking to the cover of cigarette packs.
Research has suggested the warnings have prompted some to quit smoking, but the World Health Organization estimates nearly six million people continue to die globally each year from smoking-related causes. The tobacco industry has fought government efforts to introduce or increase the size of graphic warnings in some countries.
The law was not immediately made public, but legislation approved by lawmakers last month required 50 per cent of the bottom of cigarette packs, front and back, to be covered by graphic pictures and illustrations of smoking hazards such as damaged lungs and throats.
Anti-tobacco advocates cautiously welcomed the law.
Ever Rojas, a laryngeal cancer survivor who heads an anti-tobacco group in the Philippines, said the law would discourage would-be smokers and reduce tobacco consumption, but added it was a compromise that also accommodated concerns of tobacco companies.
“It’s like seeing poison on a pack,” Rojas said. “This will save many from smoking, especially the young.”
He called for vigilance, say- ing there were provisions in the law that may allow tobacco companies to interfere in its enforcement.
The Philippines is a tobacco producer and smoking haven, with one of Asia’s highest smoking rates. It had some of the lowest prices for tobacco products before a “sin tax” law took effect last year.
A recent Department of Health-commissioned survey indicated the law helped reduce smoking among poor and young people.