High Court favors cigarette warning labels

Boosting the Department of Health’s (DOH) campaign against smoking, the Supreme Court has finally ruled in favor of displaying warning labels on the danger smoking poses to one’s health, on both sides of a cigarette pack, which tobacco manufacturers and the Philippine Tobacco Institute (PTI) have long contested.

In the ruling, which the Office of the Solicitor General released, the High Court said the warning label should read "Warning: Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health" and placed on the lower portion of the front and back panels of a cigarette pack.

"It’s a victory for the DOH, anti-tobacco crusaders and the rest of the Filipino people who abhor smoking and its adverse effects on health," Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said.

He added that the decision is clearly a step ahead in the govern—ment’s campaign against smoking.

Dayrit, however, said the most effective way to discourage smoking is by increasing the prices of cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The case started in 1994 when the Philippine Tobacco Institute questioned with the Makati Regional Trial Court the validity of Section 5 of the DOH’s Administrative Order No. 10, Series 1993, stipulating the rules and regulations on the labeling and advertisement of cigarettes.

The provision required cigarette packs to contain the statement "Secretary of Health’s Warning: Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health" on the lower portion of the front and back panels of a cigarette pack.

The Makati RTC declared the administrative order invalid in so far as the requirements of Republic Act 7394, or the Consumers Act of the Philippines, were concerned.

The case was then elevated to the Court of Appeals where the DOH, through the Office of the Solicitor General, conceded that the words "Secretary of Health’s" might be dropped.

But the DOH maintained that requiring cigarette manufacturers to put the warning labels on both the front and back panels of a cigarette pack was in consonance with the provisions of RA 7394.

When the appellate court declared the DOH administrative order valid, the Philippine Tobacco Institute petitioned the Supreme Court for a review.

Studies show that tobacco-related diseases killed more than four million people worldwide, at least 20,000 of them Filipinos, in 1998.