FCTC Alliance, Philippines

Update:
This AO, which required 25% size warnings on both front and back panels, has been superceded by RA 9211 (Tobacco Regulations Act of 2003), which, beginning July 2006, requires a 30% size warning only on the front panel--a definite step BACKWARDS!

[Reproduced below is the DOH press release from 2001, when the Supreme Court upheld AO 10.

Since late 2001, tobacco control advocates wondered why cigar and cigarette companies had not yet complied with this labeling requirement. According to the BFAD, implementing guidelines had been issued, and full compliance by manufacturers was required by July 1, 2002. By mid-2002, drafting of RA 9211 was underway, and the AO was never implemented.

View Administrative Order 10 here ]

DOH WINS COURT BATTLE AGAINST SMOKING

Press Release/19 September 2001

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of displaying warning statements in both front and back of cigarette pack panel, an advocacy long contested by tobacco manufacturers and its umbrella institute.

The Office of the Solicitor General released early this month the final decision of the Supreme Court on the case of the Philippine Tobacco Institute (PTI) against the Court of Appeals (CA) and the Secretary of Health, regarding the use of both front and back lower portion of cigarette pack panel in stating warnings against the effects of smoking to health.

The Supreme Court decision said that the statement: "Warning: Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health" placed at the lower back portion of the front and back of the principal display panel of the cigarette pack may now be fully implemented without legal impediment.

"It's a victory for the Department of Health, the anti-tobacco crusaders and the rest of the Filipino people who abhor smoking and its effects on health", Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said, noting that it is clearly a step ahead in the campaign of the government against smoking.

The case, which started way back in 1994, involved an action initiated by PTC before the Makati City Regional Trial Court. The PTC questioned the validity of Section 5 of the Department of Health (DOH) Administrative Order No. 10, series of 1993 that embodies rules and regulations on labelling and advertisement of cigarettes. The said Section requires that cigarette packs should contain the warning statement: "Secretary of Health's Warning: Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to your Health" at the lower portion of the front and back of the principal panel of the cigarette pack.

The Makati City Regional Trial Court declared the said DOH Administrative Order No. 10 invalid in so far as the requirements of R.A. 7394 is concerned.

The case was then elevated to the Court of Appeals in which the Department of Health, through the Office of the Solicitor General, conceded that the words "Secretary of Health's" may be dropped from the warning statement, but maintained that the requirement of placing the warning statement on the lower portion of both the front and back of the principal display panel is in consonance with the provisions of R.A. 7394.

In the Court of Appeals' February 10, 2000 decision, the Section 5 of DOH Administrative Order No. 10 was declared valid.

The PTI then filed a petition for review to the Supreme Court. The said petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court in the Resolution dated February 5, 2001 and was declared final in the Resolution dated June 20, 2001.

Experts have said that tobacco and the illnesses it causes killed more than four million people worldwide in 1998, and at least 20,000 of these deaths were Filipinos.