Flavier dares Estrada to quit smoking, help in gov't drive

CABANATUAN CITY - Little daredevil.

Few would publicly dare ask President Estrada to give up smoking. But Sen. Juan Flavier seems only too willing to take the heat for doing so.

Flavier, chairman of the Senate committee on health and demography, said that Mr. Estrada should completely give up his smoking habit for the sake of his countrymen, more and more of whom are smoking. He said that at least 35 percent of Filipinos now are smokers.

"I would strongly recommend for Estrada to stop smoking to send an example and to send a strong signal to the public that the government is serious in eliminating smoking which is dangerous to health," Flavier said during the launching of the Early Childhood Development Program in Nueva Ecija.

Flavier, a former health secretary who thought up the "Yosi Kadiri" anti-smoking campaign, said that the public should support his pet bill, Senate Bill 1554 which bans smoking in public conveyances and regulates the labeling and sale of tobacco products. A counterpart bill in the House was filed by Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Marañon.

Flavier expressed belief that smoking also led to the death of former Senate President Marcelo Fernan.

"We have a high level of cardio-vascular diseases and part of the problem is smoking. The sad part is that you start smoking at the age of 15 and you will have cancer at 45," he warned.

A white paper on tobacco and smoking prepared by Flavier's committee in the Senate showed that an average of two Filipinos die every hour due to the effects of tobacco smoking. It said that in 1998 alone, tobacco-related illnesses killed over four million people worldwide.

"There are now more people dying of smoking than AIDS, tuberculosis, fires and even wars," the report said, quoting the World Health Organization (WHO).

Health Secretary Alberto Romualdez revealed that tobacco smoke carries more than 4,000 chemicals, 43 of which are carcinogenic.

Flavier pointed out that Southeast Asian countries have adopted laws to educate their people on the hazards of smoking. These include the imposition of price and non-price mechanisms to bring down cigarette consumption, banning the sale of tobacco to minors, mandatory printing of strong and prominent warning labels on cigarette packages, and raising prices through higher taxes.

He lamented that the Philippines is the only country in the region which has failed to adopt these kinds of measures although many local governments have taken the initiative to ban smoking in public places.

"In other countries, they don't say smoking is dangerous to your health, but that smoking kills," Flavier said.