Senate Blue Ribbon Chairperson Sen. Pia Cayetano's opening statement
Transcript of opening statement on 5th Dirty Ashtray award received by Philippines

This public hearing of the Committee on Accountability of Public Officers and Investigations, known as the Blue Ribbon, is hereby called to order.

This Committee will tackle the issues surrounding the participation of the Philippine Delegation in the WHO FCTC COP10, which resulted in the Philippines receiving its 5th Dirty Ashtray Award.

This is based on the privilege speech that this representation delivered last February 14, 2024.

Before I give my opening statement, may I ask that the oath of the resource persons is taken? Can you all stand please?

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I acknowledge the presence of Sen. JV Ejercito. Sen. JV, welcome. The former Chairman of the Committee on Health. Sen. JV, do you have an opening statement?

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Sen JV: Very alarming; kids, young men and women are already on vapes. That's why I am here, we want to make sure this will be regulated. Nagtataka bakit napunta sa DTI.

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Thank you, Sen. JV. I also have a copy of Sen. Joel Villanueva's opening statement. He asked that we insert this in the record. But let me just state that he basically expressed his concern due to tobacco related diseases. And I'll read an excerpt from Sen. Joel.

"Kaya nga po tayo ay nalulungkot at nababahala nang marinig natin na sa ika-limang pagkakataon, nagawaran ng Global Alliance for Tobacco Control ang Pilipinas ng Dirty Ashtray award. Bakit po ito nangyari at bakit hinayaan ng ating mga health officials na mangyari ito? We need to get to the bottom of this because we do not want to harm the country's reputation with regards to strengthening health regulations, including tobacco control. In today's hearing, we want to hear from the officials of the DOH and the other members of the PH delegation on what transpired and to make the responsible persons accountable for this incident."

So we insert his entire speech into the record.

So I will proceed with my opening statement.

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On the event of the WHO FCTC, also known as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Conference held in Panama City Feb. 5-10, the Global Alliance for Tobacco Control (GATC) - a civil society alliance group whose mission is to unite the global tobacco control community and serve as the voice of civil society to accelerate implementation of the WHO FCTC, awarded the notorious Dirty Ashtray to the Philippine delegation for the 5th time for blocking global tobacco control efforts on the last day of the 10th session of the said conference.

The Dirty Ashtray Award is a well known, publicly recognized award to call out those influenced by lobbying for the tobacco industry. The criteria to earn this award is when public officials succumb to, or when the government accepts, supports, or endorses policies or legislation in collaboration with the tobacco industry.

Bakit tayo nagkaroon ng Dirty Ashtray award? Why would we want our Philippine delegation associated with a Dirty Ashtray award? Why would we want to be known as succumbing to the lobby of the tobacco group? This is a question that I will ask all of you.

Imbes na itaguyod at ipaglaban ang kalusugan ng mamamayang Pilipino, nag-attend ang napakaraming opisyales dito sa WHO event. So kasama din yun sa gusto nating alamin. Wala po akong problema, hindi po isyu na naga-attend tayo ng conference. Naga-attend din po ako ng conference. Pero itong conference na ito, ang Philippins ang may pinakamalaking delegation. At ang delegation natin ay, kasama dito, and please correct me when I'm wrong when I give you the floor, of course we have our head of delegation, Atty. Hubert Guevara from the Office of the President, Deputy Executive Secretary. Then we also have the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Health, along with the Department of Health is the Food and Drug Administration, sa inyo naman talaga ito because it is a WHO event. And then there's the Department of Trade, there's the National Tobacco Administration, there is the Department of Agriculture... Saan dito yung representatives natin from the Department of Agriculture? Pero iba ka pa, no? You are from NTA, right? So separately, as far as I know, and maybe you can just confirm the list of your delegation, Secretary Guevara, may Department of Agriculture din na nag-attend, then there's the Department of Interior and Local Government, yes, nag-attend din kayo. Then meron ding from PLLO. Dami. Lahat kayo. So I will want to hear from all of you what your participations were in that conference and what your knowledge is on the dangers of tobacco and e-cigarettes, HTPs. I will test your knowledge because if you are attending these conferences, then I am assuming that you are going to be participating there in a substantial way. And, did I mention DepEd? Hindi ko yata nabanggit si DepEd. But DepEd was also present, no? Kayo mismo? And you should be there because the children are the targets of these novel tobacco product companies, and of course, still the tobacco companies.

And then later on, I will also acknowledge the resource persons coming from the civil society, but I was just mentioning the names of agencies that were present there.

So before I turn over the floor to the head of delegation to give your opening remarks or your position paper, I just want to make sure that the public that is watching this Blue Ribbon hearing knows enough to understand why I call this hearing for the Blue Ribbon. During the pandemic, there were a lot of reported cases... they are known as EVALI cases. Ito yung e-cigarettes or vaping use associated lung injury. So all of this was in the news. I would say 5 years ago, I did not even know what an ecig is. I didn't even hear of it. What we see are people smoking. But in the last maybe half a decade, yun na nga, naging ano na, common sa atin to hear of people vaping, for people using ecigs, that's the common term used. But there are technical terms for this that differentiates one from the other. HTPs, novel tobacco products, and so on and so forth. But at the end of the day, the ill effects of these products are undisputed. And you can see from these pictures the unquestionable adverse effects of e-cigarettes on health. Nakakamatay at nakakasira ng buhay ng mga tao, including ang mga kabataan natin. 1 in 5 adult Filipinos are currently tobacco users. That's 1 in 5. So 20 percent. That's not something to be proud of. Sa mga bata naman, ages 13-15, 12.5 percent, which is equivalent to around 762,000 students are currently tobacco users. When it comes to vapes and ecigs, as of 2021, 2.7 million Filipinos are vape users. Is that small, is that big? Well think about it this way, 5 years ago, may vape users ba? O ngayon may vape users na tayo. And the studies show, the research shows that most people do not shift from cigarette smoking to vape or ecig using. They become dual users. This is not a health hearing so I will not go into the details. But I need to explain because we have students, reporters, and they need to understand bakit ba napunta sa Blue Ribbon ito. Dahil ang Blue Ribbon, kailangan iniintindi niya kung ginagawa ng government officials ang trabaho nila. So kung ang Department of Health, trabaho nila ang kalusugan, ineexpect ko, sila ang mag-iintindi nun. So kung yung ibang government officials nakikialam doon, nanggugulo pa, kailangan ko din malaman yun dahil hindi na nila trabaho manggulo. And it becomes a crime if they are doing that.

So about 14 percent, 1 in 7 students aged 13-15 say they are now currently using e-cigarettes. I ask you, those of you sitting here, may anak ba kayo? I have a 13 year old son, once a week natatanong ko siya kung alam niya yan, alam niya bawal, but I am so scared. When is that day that it's going to be an uso thing for him and his friends? And then nababalitaan nila sa news na Dirty Ashtray award tayo dahil pinaglalaban ng mga officials natin na, and I'll just highlight this one thing that's very upsetting to me. Articles 9 and 10 specifically of the Convention refer to the need to report. I will read it to you.

Here in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, there's Article 9 and 10. Article 9 deals with regulation of the content of tobacco products. Article 10 deals with regulation of tobacco product disclosure. So sa madaling salita, Article 9 says kailangan magkaroon ng testing, measuring, of the contents and emissions of tobacco products, and to regulate it. Article 10 says, i-disclose ito. Ipaalam sa publiko. Kasi ang lumalabas na information galing sa mga tobacco and sa mga companies that sell vapes and e-cigarettes is, mas okay sayo yan, healthy sayo yan. So sabi ng WHO Framework, i-disclose niyo, kailangan sabihin niyo sa tao, ano ang laman ng mga produktong yan, ano ang laman ng vape, may asido ba yan? Anong chemicals meron niyan, nakakamatay ba yan, nakakakalbo ba yan, nadudurog ba ang laman-loob mo diyan? Hindi ko alam. Hindi ko nga alam, eh. So we should know. Yun lang naman ang sabi ng Article 9, i-disclose niyo. Diba 'pag bumili kayo ng pagkain, canned goods, nakasulat doon kung ano ang laman ng canned goods na yun, sodium, kung may beans man nun, beans. Kung bawal ka sa karne, alam mong may karne, ah hindi ako kakain nito. So dapat yung nilalanghap mo sa vapes and ecigs, alam mo rin ang laman. Yun ang sabi ng Article 9. I-disclose. To test and measure the content para kapag sinabi nila, syempre ano idi-disclose nila kung ayaw nila ipa-test? Kailangan ipa-test yun, diba? Para alam kung ano ang laman nun. Lumagpas ba yun sa percent na safe sa human? Is there such a thing as safe for certain chemicals? Baka wala naman safe. That's why we have to test, and then idi-disclose. So sa pagkakaalam ko, and we will now open the floor for the resource persons to speak, ito yung hinarang. Ito yung natagalan at hindi tuloy nabigyan ng resolution so hindi tayo naka-move forward to create an expert group that would be able to finalize the implementation of these provisions. So babalik tayo ngayon and my challenge now, and at the end of the hearing, I will ask DOH, if they have the political will and authority to do it, and if they have the support of the other agencies, o sige, kung sabihin niyong we are sovereign, kasi may nakikita ko sa position papers niyo, we are sovereign, okay we are sovereign, kaya natin? Do we have the political will to test these products, to ensure that the emissions and the contents of these products would be made known to the public, so that ang bawat nanay, ang bawat tatay, ang bawat teenager, ang bawat lolo at lola, alam nila kung ano ang nilalanghap nila. That will be my question at the end of the hearing.

So on that note, I give the floor to Atty. Hubery Guevara, for I understand you are the head of the delegation. So you can proceed with your opening statement, Sir.