Pinoy women smokers increasing

Health experts have expressed alarm over the increasing number of Filipino women smokers as a result of the tobacco firms’ strategy to make smoking look “glamorous and fashionable.”

Dr. Domilyn Villarreiz, consultant of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance, said cigarette consumption in developed countries, like the United States, has dropped due to information campaigns on the dangers of tobacco consumption.

“Because of that, they are now looking at developing nations, including the Philippines, to sell their products. Their targets are the youth and women,” Villarreiz noted during “Glamour, Smoke and Tobacco,” a seminar on women, media and tobacco held recently in Davao City.

The seminar was organized by the Women’s Media Circle Foundation Inc. to inform women on the dangers of cigarette smoking.

A survey by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology in 2003 showed that 12 to 20 percent of Filipino women and 50 to 60 percent of men were cigarette smokers.

“In this case, we don’t fight for equal rights with men. But more and more women are smoking now. Before, you would hardly see women smoking in public. Now, they would even flaunt it, thinking that they look more glamorous and fashionable with a cigarette in their hand,” said Villarreiz, also the coordinator of Smoke-Free Davao campaign in Davao City.

Dr. Maricar Limpin, executive director of Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance-Philippines, said tobacco firms have come up with cigarette packs that would appeal to women to make up for the advertising ban or regulation implemented in some countries.

Limpin revealed that there are slim, pink, and green cigarettes being sold in the Philippines.

“Before, cigarettes were made the symbol of manhood, that you are macho if you smoke. But time has changed. They are making cigarettes appear as a symbol of fashion and glamour.”

– Shiela Crisostomo