Press Release - Transcript of Senator Pia Cayetano's statement on the Senate floor On SC's decision over FDA's regulatory power over tobacco products

Mr. President, this is just a point of information for the body.

Today, the Supreme Court has ruled that the FDA has authority over tobacco products. It has denied the motion for reconsideration of the Philippine Tobacco Institute (PTI) and has ruled with finality that the FDA has regulatory powers over the health aspects of tobacco products.

I bring this up today, Mr. President, because time and again, this august body has had to make very difficult decisions, and has passed laws regulating the tobacco industry. Sadly, one of the major laws that we have passed in the last Congress was in favor of the tobacco industry. That law gave the power to regulate the vape products, which are tobacco products, to the Department of Trade and Industry.

And today, the Blue Ribbon Committee, which I chair, is hearing the monumental, catastrophic, embarrassing spectacle that the Philippine government presented itself in an international body, wherein they lobbied for the tobacco industry... They supported the tobacco cause in a health forum, a WHO health forum. That is pending in the Blue Ribbon Committee.

As we go about our day-to-day work, on the internet are products that are targeting the youth. They are tobacco products in a different form, they are now encased in plastic, they are now emitting what is called vapors instead of smoke, but they're equally harmful, Mr. President. And this body, in the last Congress, gave the authority to DTI, that to this day, if you look at the jurisdiction of DTI, has absolutely no power, no expertise in the health field. And yet they are given the power to regulate these products.

So I bring this up, my dear colleagues, because with finality, the Supreme Court has ruled that it is the FDA that has jurisdiction over [the health aspects of] tobacco products.

A very brief history, dear colleagues. In 2008, I sponsored the FDA bill. In 2009, it became a law. Around 2011, the FDA issued regulations regulating the tobacco industry, and Philip Morris refused to be under the jurisdiction of the tobacco industry, and they filed the case in the lower court, and this went all the way up to the Supreme Court. It's been a battle for 15 years, if you