‘Smoke-free Philippines’

The Philip Morris International (PMI) chief executive officer (CEO) Jacek Olczak recently announced their company – selling the world’s No.1 cigarette brand Marlboro – aims to become a majority “smoke-free” business by 2025. This means more than half of their total sales revenues should come from “smoke-free” products.

The head honcho no less of the world’s biggest cigarette producer declared: “Cigarettes belong to museums.”

The Philippines should aspire to join this “smoke-free future” that the PMI, through its local affiliate here the Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp. Inc. (PMFTCI), is striving to achieve. In our Kapihan sa Manila Bay breakfast news forum last Wednesday, PMFTCI president Denis Gorkun disclosed their company has, in fact, been strengthening its partnership with the Philippine government to ensure the effective implementation of Republic Act (RA) 11900, or the law currently regulating the production and sale of vapes and other e-cigarettes devices.

Called for short as the Vape Law, this is the Vaporized Nicotine and Non-Nicotine Products Regulation Act. RA 11900 lapsed into law without the signature of former president Rodrigo Duterte in July last year.

“The Vape Law has been described as a landmark legislation and a victory for public health. International public health experts hailed this Philippine law as among the first in the world to recognize the principle of tobacco harm reduction as a tool to end smoking,” Gorkun cited.

“We are working towards our ‘smoke-free future’ vision with products found by numerous international health authorities to be better alternatives compared to cigarettes,” Gorkun stressed.

According to Gorkun, the PMI has “invested P500 billion” in research and development studies on science and technology to create much safer alternative products. These include, he cited, the MPI’s most popular IQOS e-cigarette device. According to him, the PMFTCI targets to make more affordable the IQOS to “current smokers” who cannot or refuse to stop smoking.

“We are guided by a basic principle we call ‘Unsmoke.’ If you don’t smoke, don’t start. If you smoke, quit. And if you don’t quit, change,” Gorkun urged.

A former congresswoman and now Department of Energy (DOE) Undersecretary Sharon Garin welcomed Gorkun’s public pronouncements as testimonial of how the 17th Congress carefully crafted the Vape Law. Garin is one of the principal authors of RA 11900 which she billed as a “forward-looking” law. At the Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum, Garin recalled how the proposed Vape bills struggled in Congress when they were first filed in 2013 amid strong lobby groups rallying against this vape regulatory measure.

The vapes were lumped together with the other so-called “sin” products like cigarettes and alcoholic drinks heavily imposed with so-called “sin” taxes. “We can not tax it (vape products) if it is not regulated. Thus, this (Vape Law) gave the government the power to tax. Or else it will be free-for-all,” Garin pointed out.

RA 11900 was passed into law when Garin was on her third and last term as party-list representive of Ang Asosasyon Sang Mangunguma Nga Bisaya-Owa Mangunguma, Inc., also known as the AAMBIS-Owa. “When we passed these regulations on vapes, it was the right time to do it while it (the vape industry) was still at the infancy period,” Garin stressed.

Under the Vape Law, she cited, 75 percent of government tax collections from these products are earmarked for the Universal Health Care (UHC) and for other public medical assistance and health facilities. This is consistent with the Philippine commitment to the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that, among other things, sought to increase revenue collections for public health spending and reduce the burden of tobacco smoking and alcohol use.

Likewise, Garin explained the Vape Law divided the government regulatory functions among at least three state agencies, namely, the Department of Health-Food and Drug Administration (DOH-FDA); the Department of Trade and Industry-Fair Trade Enforcement Bureau (DTI- FTEB); and, the Department of Finance-Bureau of Internal Revenue (DOF-BIR).

Garin dismissed the reported friction between the DOH and the DTI over the latter’s supposedly lackluster monitoring and enforcement of the Vape Law. It erupted on May 31 this year when the DOH, out of the blue, issued an official statement directed to the DTI.

“But it’s a good balance, one watching over the other. The differences of these agencies will make the public protected. So I’m not troubled by it. The debate is good as long as they exercise their duties provided for in RA 11900,” Garin stressed.

A certified public accountant and lawyer, Garin though noted with grave concern the reports cited by the PMFTCI about the continuing rampant smuggling of cigarettes and the growing illicit trade of vaping devices. Garin warned the government could lose as much as P13.3 billion due to the illicit sale of vaporized nicotine or vape products even in sari-sari or neighborhood stores.

Combining state revenue leakages from vape tax and the estimated P30-billion unpaid duties from smuggled cigarette products, Garin asserted, this represent the earmarked collections from the “sin” taxes mandated for the UHC and allocated to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

“It (revenue losses from the Vape Law) is even bigger than the P2.2 billion annual budget of the DOE,” Garin quipped in dismay.

Garin though lauded “legitimate” companies like PMFTCI as they invest so much and “work very hard in improving their technology.” Describing herself as a “social smoker,” Garin noted in particular the next-generation heated tobacco device called “IQOS Iluma” that uses smartcore induction system.

The Philippines would be among those benefitting from the “smoke-free future” that no less than the world’s biggest sellers of cigarette products envisions to be achieved by the year 2025. That is, if only the laws are properly implemented.