Graphic health warning law to be implemented in March

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday that the new deadline for the graphic health warning law to take effect is on March 3, 2016, not yesterday, at which time no tobacco product packaging shall be manufactured without the graphic warning.

In a forum, DOH-GHW Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) committee chairman Alexander Padilla said that because of the amendments in the templates of the GHW (graphic health warning) that the tobacco industry must use, the timeline had been adjusted.

“GHW shall take effect one year after the templates were published. But there was a delay because the original templates released (on Nov. 5, 2014) by the DOH were amended. So the new deadline now is based on the second publication,” he added.

There are 12 templates of photographs designed by DOH to show the ill effects of smoking on health that tobacco companies should print on their tobacco packaging.

Padilla maintained that in November 2016, no cigarette packaging without GHW shall be sold in the market under the law.

“We are talking of two timelines here – March 2016 which is the prohibition on the manufacturers and November 2016 which is the prohibition on the sale,” he maintained.

According to Padilla, they are finished with the IRR but it is still up for signatures of concerned agencies and stakeholders. The IRR will be released before the end of the year.

Based on the IRR, violating tobacco companies and sellers face confiscation of “violative products,” fines and/or imprisonment.

Padilla made the clarifications in reaction to the call made by Emer Rojas, president of cancer survivor group New Vois Association of the Philippines, to all tobacco companies to comply with the Nov. 5, 2015 deadline.