Letter to the editor
Philippine Daily Inquirer (July 30, 2001)

Myth of economic benefits from tobacco industry

CONGRATULATIONS to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for single-handedly placing our country at the top of the list of Asian countries with the funniest policy on tobacco control!

Kudos also for affirming once and for all what we suspected all along: that our current leaders will sacrifice anything and everything on the altar of foreign investments: our dignity, our pride, our health, our lives.

President Macapagal’s presence at the groundbreaking of Philip Morris last week reveals her lack of understanding of both local and international policy developments on tobacco control. Locally, the much hailed Philippine Clean Air Act which categorically bans smoking in enclosed public places in order to protect non-smokers from second-hand smoke and internationally, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control of the World Health Organization in which several government agencies have been actively involved since 1999 in order to support global efforts to arrest the single largest cause of preventable death and disease worldwide.

Ignorance of these two milestones in tobacco control policy brings our country much shame.

However, if consistency in policy is too much to ask, maybe we can get down to some political realities:

• Two Filipinos--smokers and non-smokers die from tobacco-related diseases each hour, resulting in 20,000 deaths each year. (Even the Abu Sayyaf can’t beat the record of the tobacco industry on this score!)

• The economic losses (tobacco-related health care, cleaning costs, man-hours lost at work and premature deaths) from tobacco use is as much as 46 billion pesos a year compared to revenues in tobacco tax duties and fees which only totaled 21.4 billion pesos in 1998. (Economic benefits from protecting the tobacco industry is a myth.)

• Based on the 2000 Global Youth Tobacco Survey, a fifth of all Filipino children start smoking at age 10. The WHO estimates that approximately half of these children will die prematurely because of addiction to nicotine. (Educational programs for the youth such as the one that Philip Morris wants to sponsor won’t work.)

• The poor bear the greatest burden for smoking since they cannot afford chemotherapy for cancer, daily medications for asthma, or open-heart surgery for clogged coronary arteries. (The pro-tobacco policy is anti-poor.)

Is all this worth 1,000 new jobs, Mrs. President?

Any support that the government or any private institution will receive from Philip Morris to promote educational programs on tobacco control is blood money. Nicotine addiction from cigarette smoking should be placed in the same category as heroin and shabu.

Scientific evidence here and abroad shows that tobacco consumption cannot be reduced by educational programs alone unless this occurs in an environment where there is a strong national regulatory policy to raise the price of tobacco products, ban its sale to minors and ban all forms of advertising and promotion.

The presence of the head of government at the ground-breaking of a twilight industry that was refused in other countries (that have serious tobacco control policies and stronger regulatory powers over health hazards) is tantamount to declaring war on health advocates who have struggled for many years to protect public health. Worst, it ensures the death of thousands of Filipinos.

It's hilarious; we are all in tears!

This is in behalf of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance-Philippines (FCAP), an organization of 56 individual and group members who support of national policy for tobacco regulation.

--SUSAN PINEDA MERCADO, M.D., president, FCAP, c/o Philippine Cancer Society, Philippine Cancer Society Bldg., 310 San Rafael St., San Miguel, Manila