FOLLOWING reports that Malacañang, through Executive Secretary Victor Rodriguez, has sent a letter to Congress to inform them that the Vaporized Nicotine Products Regulation Bill lapsed into law on July 25, health and child rights advocates minced no words to express indignation at the current and former presidents – along with the tobacco industry which blatantly lobbied for the law – for not acting to stop the law’s passage, despite warnings from health experts and even departments of the government.
It appears that the tobacco industry and its allies succeeded in their insidious plan to have the dangerous Vape Bill lapse into law, without the benefit of executive review.
Despite being ratified on Jan. 31, Congress only transmitted the consolidated bill to Malacañang on June 24, mere days before then President Rodrigo Duterte ended his term. At that time, health and child rights advocates sounded the alarms and called on Duterte to veto the bill, to no avail.
Those behind this move used the presidential transition as a tool to their advantage – transmit the bill at the 11th hour so that the outgoing president won’t be able to act on it, and the incoming president – busy with the turnover – will also not be able to stop its passage. Through devious tactics, the dangerous bill lapsed into law, opening the floodgates that will surely endanger the health of generations of Filipino children.
Health and child rights advocates call the still unnumbered Republic Act a “toxic legislation masquerading as a trade regulation law,” as it essentially relaxes regulations on the sale, distribution, use, and promotion of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) or e-cigarettes, and vaporized nicotine products (VNPs), giving the tobacco industry a free pass to reach even children.
Despite the tobacco industry’s reasoning that the Vape Law will strengthen regulations to discourage minors from using cigarette alternatives, the new law essentially lowered the minimum age of access to e-cigarettes from age 21 to 18, setting aside the proposal of several health experts to maintain 21 years old, which is the existing age restriction based on Republic Act 11467.
Restrictions on flavor descriptors for ENDS and VNPs set in the new law were only inserted to blur the fact that the legislation gives a free pass to producers to use addictive flavors that attract use among the younger generation, and even allows the online sale of e-cigarettes.
But we cannot lose hope. The 19th Congress could scrap this newly passed law. No less than the Department of Health and the Department of Education joined advocates in exposing the dangers of this law.
