|
The Department of Health said it would continue its intensified
campaign on controlling the use of tobacco in the country through
the set of strategies made by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO’s pointers include monitoring tobacco
use and prevention policies, protecting people from tobacco smoke,
offering help to quit tobacco use, warning about the dangers of
tobacco use, enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and
sponsorship, and raising tobacco taxes.
“The Health department will now monitor the
trend of tobacco use, the awareness of the people on the effects of
tobacco, and the implementation and compliance of the laws
regulating tobacco products through regular surveys,” Health
Undersecretary Alexander Padilla said.
In addition, Padilla said that the agency would
also press legislators to pass bills that would make cities and
municipalities smoke-free.
“We are now lobbying for the passage of a bill
authored by Rep. Paul Daza of Northern Samar that seeks to put
graphic warnings about the dangers of smoking on the cigarette
packs,” he said.
Padilla also assured the establishment of added
smoking cessation clinics that could help smokers quit smoking,
aside from raising the tobacco taxes by 200 percent at the minimum.
“An increase on tobacco taxes by at least 200
percent would increase government revenue and make tobacco less
accessible to people especially to the poor and the youth,”
Padilla said. “After all, tobacco remains as the only legal but
lethal product sold in the market today.”
The Health department reported that at least a
third of the Philippine adult population is smoking, while one-fifth
of the youth is into the vice. Smoking was also higher among the
poor.
“Its lamentable that tobacco spending accounts
for 2.6 percent of the monthly Filipino family’s expenditure,
surprisingly higher than education (1.6 percent) and health (1.3
percent),” he stressed.
-- Rommel C. Lontayao
|
