Two senators – Pia Cayetano and Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan – voted against SB 2239 on third reading. Only Cayetano consistently opposed the bill and said she was “beyond disappointed and beyond saddened” by its approval. Three days after the bill hurdled the Senate, the DOH slammed the “retrogressive” measure that “undermines the country’s progress in tobacco and control,” saying that it puts Filipino youth at risk. If passed into law, the bill will “expose our youth to harmful and addictive substances by making vapor products enticing and easily accessible,” the press release read. The bill stripped the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the regulatory authority over e-cigarettes and its components as a consequence of their reclassification as consumer products falling under the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). To health experts, the measure involves public health issues and should have stayed with the FDA for regulation, adding that people should not wait for vaping-related deaths to happen when parallel harms with traditional tobacco have already been proven in studies. After the sessions resume on January 17, the Senate and the House will harmonize their respective versions of the bill and ratify the conference committee report, then submit an enrolled copy to Malacañang. The DOH, FDA, several medical professional organizations and health experts, youth groups and tobacco control advocates are counting on the president to stick to his anti-smoking and anti-vaping position and veto the proposed law that defies the policy he laid down in 2019.
Read whole article HERE.