Natural vs manmade disasters

Reading and seeing the loss of lives and damage to property in the Visayas caused by super typhoon Yolanda is heartbreaking, yet the spirit of bayanihan and the unwillingness of Filipinos to be defeated remains strong, as someone else has pointed out, if Yolanda was the strongest typhoon in the world, then Filipinos, having lived through it, are the strongest people in the world. 

While humanitarian aid begins pouring in, whether from unaffected or less affected areas of our country or from international sources, we, as a nation, should remind ourselves that while we may not be able to do much about Mother Nature (climate change notwithstanding), we should be in a position to prevent or mitigate manmade disasters brought about by human greed and corruption.

Related to Yolanda's destruction, we should consider how much of the damage might have been minimized with sufficient disaster preparedness, investments in and quality standards  of infrastructure (roads, buildings, communications, water, etc), and proper community education and involvement. The same could be said regarding how we cope and begin the recovery process.  The Filipino spirit in the face of adversity is not wanting, but it could be greatly complemented by resources that, instead of serving the public good, have gone into the pockets of corrupt legislators, government executives, and civilians, who stupidly enrich themselves at the expense of others.

This group includes those who exploited the PDAF and other public funds, those who would bribe,  extort, or do substandard work rather than promote good public service,  those who value profits over  human lives and health, those who do not pay proper wages, those who litter or vandalize public places, those who can help but don't, and those who take advantage of the dire need of others in order to gain popularity, enhance their public image, or make money.  For example, during the world wars, tobacco companies gave away free cigarettes for soldiers in the field.  For typhoon/flood relief operations, companies often supply processed food products that are lacking or devoid of any nutritional value (e.g. infant formula for babies) as a means of marketing their products or so as to claim that they are helping the calamity victims.

So while we continue to render assistance in any way we can to our brothers and sisters suffering in the Visayas, let us keep a watchful eye on the plunder cases related to the PDAF and ensure that any international assistance is not squandered or looted by unscrupulous politicians.  If only God had taken them instead of the many innocents claimed by Yolanda.

Tobacco industry fights packaging regulations, misinforms everyone who doesn't know better

When the public is at risk of being harmed by a consumer product, the government usually requires warnings to be placed on those products.  Tobacco companies, however, continue to challenge this kind of government regulation. Why should tobacco be given special treatment?

Here's a blog article by Jonathan Liberman, a lawyer from Australia, who is Director of the McCabe Center for Law & Cancer. Original link here:
http://www.mccabecentre.org/blog-main-page/fromaustraliatothailand

From Australia to Thailand – defending tobacco packaging laws against multinational tobacco industry lawsuits

Friday 27 September, 2013

by Jonathan Liberman

I had the great privilege of being in Bangkok, Thailand, last week to talk with public health and legal colleagues about Thailand's defence of lawsuits brought against it by the multinational tobacco industry.

It was only my second visit to this wonderful country, the first being in June-July 2007 for the second session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). In hindsight, that COP was a landmark event, initiating the processes that led to the adoption by the COP at its third session in Durban in November 2008 of implementation guidelines on three of the FCTC's key provisions - protection of public health policies from the commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry (Article 5.3), packaging and labelling (Article 11), and tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship (Article 13). These guidelines have come to life in the five years since their adoption, supporting and empowering governments to enact appropriately tough tobacco control laws and policies.

The reason for my second visit was not a pleasant one, but one that is becoming increasingly common in the battle between public health and the global tobacco industry. Thailand recently enacted regulations to increase the size of graphic health warnings from 55% to 85% of the front and back of tobacco packaging. While Thailand, a country with a population of approximately 65 million, has made significant progress in reducing smoking rates over the last two decades, over 40% of males over the age of 15 still smoke.

Of course, the major tobacco multinationals (Japan Tobacco, Philip Morris and British American Tobacco) responded by doing what their DNA evidently demands of them - suing. The Thai Central Administrative Court has suspended enforcement of the new regulations, which were due to commence on 2 October, pending determination of the industry's claim. The Thai Government is appealing against the suspension.

Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang, Jonathan Liberman and Dr.Bhumindr Butr-indr at Thammasat Law School 

In Australia, we've learned a thing or two about government being taken to court by the multinational tobacco industry for introducing measures designed to reduce the death, disease and social costs caused by the industry's lethal and addictive products. Last year, the Australian Government successfully defended a constitutional challenge to Australia's world-first plain packaging legislation brought in our High Court by British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco and Philip Morris. Plain packaging has now been in force since December 2012, and the Government continues to face legal challenges in the World Trade Organization and under a bilateral investment treaty.

Among its many achievements, the FCTC has engendered a globalization of tobacco control networks, enabling us to share experiences and insights, and learn from one another in our individual and collective battles against the tobacco industry.

What can Thailand learn from Australia's experience, I was asked. The Thai regulations are different from the Australian legislation in several ways, including that Australia's plain packaging law prohibits the display of logos, brand imagery, symbols, other images, colours or promotional text on tobacco product packaging, and mandates that packaging be a standard drab dark brown colour and that graphic health warnings occupy 75% of the front and 90% of the back of packaging. The Thai regulations allow tobacco brand imagery and colours, but confine them to 15% of the front and back, as well as the top and bottom, of packaging.

While the two countries' packaging laws and constitutions are different, many of the tobacco industry's legal arguments in its challenge to Thailand's regulations are familiar. A number are in essence a cry to ‘keep your regulatory hands off our intellectual property rights', primarily trademarks.

In a recent paper, I suggested that six narratives or themes could be discerned in the five judgments that constituted the 6-1 majority in the Australian High Court:

• That the relevant intellectual property rights of the tobacco companies were ‘negative rights', i.e. rights to exclude others from using their property, rather than positive rights to use it themselves. 
• That tobacco companies may have lost something of commercial value, but commercial value is not the object of constitutional protection. I think of this as the ‘so what?' response. Yes, we are trying to reduce the number of lethal, addictive products you sell in order to reduce the amount of harm you do, and if your profits suffer as a result, well, that's life.
• That the regulatory scheme is no different in kind from other legislation requiring health or safety warnings.
• That the requirements of the scheme are conditions on the sale of tobacco products. The Government does not itself use tobacco packaging. If you choose to market these products - and no one is making you do so - these are the conditions you must comply with.
• That the scheme allows the continued use of brand names (including trademarked brand names), and the ability to use such names is valuable - i.e. Marlboro is still Marlboro, with or without the chevron.
• That intellectual property rights are created to serve public purposes, but they are not sacrosanct, and they do not operate above or in isolation from other laws created to serve other public purposes. The fact that you may have intellectual property rights does not prevent the Government from restricting your exploitation of those rights in order to serve the public interest.

While these narratives and themes will be presented in different ways, and using different legal concepts, in different constitutional contexts, I think they are useful generally to cases about plain packaging and large graphic health warnings.

There is another important lesson from the Australian case - that the fact that the tobacco industry claims that something is unlawful does not mean it is. And by extension, that governments cannot afford to be cowered by its threats. 

One memorable BAT media release titled ‘Plain packaging now heads to High Court'claimed that ‘the result of BAT's legal challenges could force [the Australian Government] to pay tobacco companies billions of dollars'. This was always a lie, because even if BAT had won, the Australian Government would not have had to pay billions of dollars in compensation. Rather, Australia would not have ended up with plain packaging. That's the way the relevant constitutional provision works.

BAT also claimed that ‘it is no secret that legal experts believe the Federal Government is on shaky legal ground with plain packaging'. In truth, it was exceedingly difficult to find someone who was both a lawyer and not on the tobacco industry's payroll who thought the industry was going to win. And so it proved - a 6-1 victory to the Government, and costs awarded against the tobacco industry.

Perhaps I should give the last word to a Thai doctor I met last week, one of the many dedicated and committed advocates trying to reduce the damage the tobacco industry is inflicting on their country. He asked, ‘Why does the tobacco industry always talk about its intellectual property rights, and never about the people who die from using its products?'

What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Smoking (INFOGRAPHIC)

Original post at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/20/stoptober-stop-smoking-affects-body_n_3960096.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&just_reloaded=1

APACT 2013 in Chiba, Japan: Ending the Tobacco Epidemic

Reposting my report on the recent 10th Asia Pacific Association for the Control of Tobacco (APACT) Conference in Chiba, Japan.  This was first published on the BMJ Tobacco Control Journal blog:
http://blogs.bmj.com/tc/2013/08/29/reports-from-the-asia-pacific-association-for-the-control-of-tobacco-apact2013-conference/

The Asia Pacific Association for the Control of Tobacco (APACT) marked a milestone with its 10^th APACT Conference in Chiba, Japan last 18-21 August 2013, with a record 785 delegates from 42 nations participating.

In his David Yen Memorial Lecture, Mr. Kyoichi Miyazaki traced the conference’s history back to the visionary advocates who contributed to APACT’s establishment in 1989 and its early years of growth (particularly David Yen, Ted Chen, Judith Mackay, Prakit Vathesatogkit, Gregory Connolly, Richard Daynard, Terry Pechacek, Takeshi Hirayama, David Sweanor, Nigel Gray, Martin Kawano, and Kwan-Mo Chung, among others) in response to pressure to open the Asian markets to United States (US) tobacco companies wishing to invade the region.

Dr. Judith Mackay immediately followed up with a forward-looking plenary lecture on the tobacco endgame in line with the conference theme “Ending the Tobacco Epidemic – Protecting and Keeping Healthy Lives”, and over the next few days, best practices for measures to reduce tobacco consumption, such as optimal tobacco taxation, cost-effective cessation, and smoke-free policy advocacy, were discussed in plenary sessions, symposia, and poster presentations. Particular recognition was given to Australia for legislating the world’s first plain packaging of tobacco products, to Thailand for standing up to Big Tobacco’s intimidation by litigation for requiring the world’s largest (85%) pictorial health warnings, and to New Zealand for trendsetting a 2025 endgame target.

In contrast, the conference also recognized the varying degrees of tobacco control implementation in individual countries and underscored the need for full and accelerated FCTC implementation across our region in order to slow the tobacco death clock. Indonesia, for example, remains the only Asian country not a party to the FCTC, and conference host, Japan, still has no national law to protect the public from secondhand smoke. In this regard, delegates and speakers also shared experiences relating to the increasing incidence and overtness of tobacco industry interference in public policy (e.g. through their so-called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities, litigation against effective tobacco regulation, and stakeholder engagement in international trade policies) and called on governments to immediately and fully implement FCTC Article 5.3 and its guidelines, to ban CSR activities by the industry, and to explicitly exclude tobacco products from international, regional, and bilateral trade and investment agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement currently being negotiated, noting that, except for the US, all TPP negotiators are Parties to the FCTC.

The 10th APACT further recognized the importance of the youth as future leaders who must be meaningfully engaged to realize the tobacco endgame in the Asia Pacific region, because just as in 1989, continuing collaboration is needed to overcome Big Tobacco, which relentlessly targets young people of Asia for its profits.

The next APACT Conference will be in 2016 in Qingdao, China.

APACT declaration and statements here: http://www.apact.jp/conference_statements.html

August 26th: we can all be national heroes

Tomorrow, August 26th, is National Heroes Day in the PH, an excellent opportunity for ordinary citizens to be this generation's heroes as we collectively call for the abolition of the congressional pork barrel and the prosecution of all those who have swindled the Filipino public. 

I am joining because this is my responsibility as a Catholic, as a Filipino, and as an Iskolar ng Bayan.

Let us pray that the gathering will be peaceful and orderly and that all participants will show that they/we are also responsible by not littering, spitting, smoking in public, destroying public property, or resorting to violence. If we expect our political leaders to be responsible and law-abiding, we must expect the same from ourselves and each other.

This should be a wake-up call not just to those in government but also to ordinary citizens: we all have a role in nation-building, and we should take this role seriously.  It is both stupid and cowardly to demand for our rights if we do not also act responsibly for the public good.

Janet Napoles’ Pork Barrel Scam: Theft from a Nation?

Although the enormous size of the tobacco pandemic remains a good reason to keep writing about it, I'm going slightly off target for now by pointing readers to another blog article, one that focuses on the ongoing "pork barrel" scam in my country and the role of Janet Napoles and her shell companies, as well as the online boasting of wealth by her children (link below). 

Reading this article is enough to make your blood boil, and that's how I feel when I read about how the tobacco industry continues to make millions in profits at the expense of smokers, at least half of whom will die prematurely if they are regular users of these lethal products.  And of course, these rich tobacco companies have more than sufficient funds to buy off senators and congressmen to protect their vested interests.

Make sure you read the comments at the bottom of the article.

http://momandpopmoments.com/2013/07/31/janet-napoles-pork-barrel-scam-theft-from-a-nation/

Janet Napoles’ Pork Barrel Scam: Theft from a Nation?

Here is a snippet from the article (and I urge you to read it in its entirety):

This news, however, has taken on a new dimension with the revelation of Ms. Napoles’ children’s extravagant lifestyles taken from their own personal blogs that they have neglected to discontinue in time.  (See full article and video here: Napoles’ daughter blogs about lavish lifestyle andNapoles daughter flaunts family’s wealth) This information only strengthens the possibility that the accusations against Ms. Napoles and the senators just might be true.

How can someone who does business in a nation where over 70% of the population live below the poverty line afford this kind of lavish lifestyle without any legitimate business to explain it? Even the country’s biggest businessmen: Henry Sy, Lucio Tan and the Gokongwei families don’t have this kind of extravagant lifestyle even though they have more concrete businesses and assets to show for it.

In my curiosity, I went to the website of Ms. Janet Lim Napoles’ corporation called JLN Corporation to check out whether or not her claims of legitimately earning her wealth have any grounds.  Surely, if they had this huge business capable of sustaining their lifestyle, it would reflect in their websites and will have an impact on some business news if I search it online.

Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zero.

PMFTC claims losses after tax increase; PMI expects 10% growth in 2013

According to PMI's recent press release on Q2 earnings (http://www.pmi.com/eng/media_center/press_releases/pages/201307180700.aspx):

Despite a decline in volumes in the first half of 2013, PMI's net profits (for Q1+Q2) of $7.9 billion were down by only 2.5%. The company's CEO also predicts that PMI will meet its growth rate target of 10-12% this year: “For the second half of the year, we expect volume/mix to improve, pricing to remain strong and our total cost variance, excluding currency, to be flat. While industry volume remains a challenge, our underlying business performance is such that we continue to expect to meet our mid to long-term currency neutral adjusted diluted EPS growth rate target of 10-12% in 2013.”

"In the Philippines, PMI’s shipment volume of 19.1 billion units decreased by 16.5%, primarily reflecting the unfavorable impact of the disruptive excise tax increase in January 2013, which resulted in a recommended retail selling price increase for premium Marlboro and low-price Fortune of approximately 60% and 70%, respectively. Industry cigarette volume of 23.1 billion units was estimated to have decreased by 7.0%, reflecting a partial, but insufficient, improvement in declared tax-paid volume by local manufacturers and government tax enforcement. PMI’s market share in the quarter decreased by 9.5 points to 82.9%, primarily due to down-trading to competitive brands. Marlboro’s market share decreased by 5.9 points to 14.7%. Share of low-price Fortune decreased by 18.0 points to 32.8%, partly offset by gains from PMI’s other local low-price brands. PMI’s cigarette shipments are estimated to decline by 20-25% for the full-year 2013, as the availability of non-tax paid domestic volume remains a critical issue."

Apparently, PMI is continuing to blame the January excise increase and illicit trade/smuggling ("non-tax paid domestic volume") for its declining market volumes, and denying the fact that smokers are smoking less and/or quitting (in addition to smokers down-trading to cheaper brands).  

The PH Department of Health should try to get new prevalence data as soon as possible to clearly illustrate the positive (dampening) effect of the sin tax increase on consumption.

Given that PMI made huge profits last year (2012) and is expecting further growth this year (2013), let's look at how much money PMI made in 2012 and relate this to how many deaths its products caused in the same year.

In 2012:
- PMI's share of the global market = 16.3%
- Global number of deaths from tobacco in 2012 = 6 million
- PMI's 2012 death toll = 978,000
- PMI's 2012 earnings = $14.2 billion
- PMI's earnings per death = $14,519.00

If at least 87,600 Filipinos are killed by tobacco every year, and PMFTC holds 94% of the market (as of 2012), then PMFTC is accountable for at least 82,344 Filipino deaths.

If we multiply this number by PMI's reported global earnings per death, this means that PMFTC earned $1,195,552,536 or PHP 50.2 billion (USD=PHP42) from tobacco-caused deaths in the PH in 2012.

Now compare this to what the entire tobacco industry in the PH (including PMFTC) paid to the government as excise in 2012: PHP 28.16 billion.

The tobacco industry has no shame.

Indeed, if tobacco is such a good product, why don't tobacco executives use it themselves?

Nassim Taleb: "Never buy a product that the owner of the company that makes it doesn't use, or, in the case of, say, medication, wouldn't contingently use." 

(from: http://www.businessinsider.com/nassim-talebs-musings-on-facebook-2013-7#ixzz2ZFlix7xX)

Got to agree with the eccentric author of "The Black Swan" on this one.  Indeed, why don't tobacco executives use their products, and why don't they want their children to use them? Here's the response of tobacco executives from R.J. Reynolds when asked by Dave Goerlitz, then a Winston cigarette ad model, about why none of them smoked:

"We don't smoke that sh*t. We just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black and the stupid." - as quoted in The Times of London, 02 August 1992.

Clearly, the tobacco industry is not a legitimate stakeholder in tobacco control

http://blogs.bmj.com/tc/2013/01/31/a-letter-to-the-us-fda-from-tobacco-control-editor-ruth-malone/

Reposting this excellent response of Ruth Malone to the US FDA explaining her decision to decline their invitation to join a discussion panel that includes the tobacco industry.

A letter to the US FDA from Tobacco Control Editor, Ruth Malone

31 January 2013

This post from editor Ruth Malone is a response to an invitation from the US Food and Drug Administration to participate as a speaker on a panel with the tobacco industry focused on the topic of industry-funded research.

I was very surprised to be invited to present as part of an FDA-sponsored “Facilitated Dialogue” panel also featuring tobacco industry representatives, which would be focused on the topic of industry-funded research. This very type of industry engagement with senior public health figures is straight out of the tobacco companies’ public relations “corporate social responsibility” playbook and was something that at least one tobacco company anticipated as a favorable result of FDA legislation. [1, 2] Such “dialogues” have long been part of this and earlier industry public relations campaigns. Public health authorities and scientists – to say nothing of the federal agency charged with regulating this industry — should not lend their legitimacy to the tobacco companies’ efforts to position themselves as socially responsible.

I would be very willing to come to Rockville and share my perspectives with the FDA on the issue of third parties and tobacco products research. However, I cannot in good conscience participate as a panelist in this “Facilitated Dialogue” with the tobacco industry. Further, I strongly urge that other researchers from the public health community decline participation on such panels. The FDA should consider other means of determining a suitable framework for addressing the many issues related to industry-funded research. While this is clearly an issue about which I have thought and written extensively, I think this meeting as currently envisioned is a very bad idea.

My reasons are:

First, involving the tobacco companies as “stakeholders” on a panel with the public health community in this way suggests that all parties share a common or at least congruent goal. This is a flawed assumption. Public health advocates (and presumably the FDA) have a stake in saving lives. Tobacco companies have a stake in protecting profits. The research evidence has repeatedly demonstrated that they will do whatever it takes to continue to promote the use of cigarettes, their single most deadly product. While the companies may have an interest in reducing the numbers who die prematurely from using their products (so that they will live to purchase more of them), they have never indicated any willingness to pull from the market the products that kill half their longtime users and continue to be sold. Absent such willingness, the practical goals of public health and the tobacco industry are in direct conflict. No “dialogue” will change that.

Second, any such discussion among “stakeholders” would require a minimal level of mutual understanding about the nature and purpose of science. However, a large body of academic research based on the industry’s own internal documents, as well as federal Judge Gladys Kessler’s extensive findings of fact in the successful U.S Department of Justice racketeering case against the major tobacco companies, [3] demonstrates that research is an arena in which the tobacco industry is particularly untrustworthy. This fact was also repeatedly noted in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Report on Scientific Standards for Studies on Modified Risk Tobacco Products.[4] As the Kessler decision found, the tobacco industry engaged in a conspiracy to cover up and distort the evidence of their products’ harmfulness, and they have a long track record of egregious manipulation of science. The courts also found that this behavior is continuing and likely to continue in the future; I see no reason to differ with this conclusion. For this very reason, Tobacco Control, the journal that I edit, and other reputable scientific journals including PLoS Medicine no longer publish tobacco industry-funded research. [5, 6] To engage the industry as a legitimate partner in the discussion of how to deal with industry science is to ignore this large body of evidence.

Third, as noted briefly above, such engagements have long been envisioned by tobacco companies as facilitating their image reform efforts while creating divisions within the tobacco control community. As we demonstrated in our papers examining Philip Morris’s support for FDA regulation of tobacco products [1]and its development of Project Sunrise, which sought to create and exploit divisions within tobacco control, [2]engagement with public health organizations allows tobacco companies to position themselves as reasonable and responsible, and position those who refuse to engage as extremists. In fact, shortly after the failure of a previous bill giving FDA authority to regulate tobacco, top Philip Morris executives were exploiting public speaking opportunities in which they falsely claimed to have “partnered” with leading public health organizations in supporting regulation. This is precisely the type of mileage tobacco companies can achieve from engaging in “facilitated dialogues” such as those envisioned by FDA.

Fourth, tobacco industry denormalization is a key part of successful tobacco control efforts. Convening a meeting of this sort undermines those critically important efforts by creating a forum for re-legitimation through association with respected public health agencies and leaders. Lending the FDA imprimatur to a public meeting featuring tobacco company speakers suggests that something has indeed changed and the industry is no longer harming people through its promotion of deadly products. But this is patently untrue. And, as we recently showed in an extensive review, a robust body of evidence supports tobacco industry denormalization as an effective population-level tobacco control strategy that contributes to reduced smoking prevalence among young people, reduced youth smoking initiation, increased intentions to quit and reduced perceived peer smoking prevalence. [7] It is very puzzling that the FDA would act in a way that undermines this important work.

The FDA may be required to interact with the industry for the purposes of discussing proposed regulation of tobacco products and what tobacco companies must do to comply. The FDA is not, however, required to “facilitate” dialogue as though it were acting as a neutral mediator between two parties with equally valid but divergent interests. In positioning itself as some sort of neutral party, FDA is unwittingly acting as an agent for the tobacco industry’s public relations initiatives and undermining a strong tobacco control strategy. This is very problematic and to those of us who have spent more than a decade researching industry strategies, enormously naive.

For these reasons I am declining to participate in this meeting and urging my colleagues to do the same.

[1] McDaniel PA, Malone RE. Understanding Philip Morris’s pursuit of US government regulation of tobacco. Tobacco Control. 2005;14(3):193-200.
[2] McDaniel PA, Smith EA, Malone RE. Philip Morris’s Project Sunrise: weakening tobacco control by working with it. Tobacco Control. 2006;15:215-23.
[3] United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Amended Final Opinion, U.S. Department of Justice versus Philip Morris et al. Civil Action No. 99-2496 (GK). http://publichealthlawcenter.org/sites/default/files/resources/doj-final-opinion.pdf 2006.
[4] Institute of Medicine Committee on Scientific Standards for Studies on Modified Risk Tobacco Products. Scientific standards for studies on modified risk tobacco products. Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine; 2012.
[5] Malone RE. Changing Tobacco Control’s policy on industry-funded research. Tobacco Control. 2013;22(1):1-2.
[6] PLoS Editors. A new policy on tobacco papers. PLoS Medicine. 2010;7(2):e1000237.
[7] Malone RE, Grundy Q, Bero LA. Tobacco industry denormalisation as a tobacco control intervention: A review. Tobacco Control. 2012;21:162-70.

MIssion: Smoke-free Philippines

All health-loving Filipinos are encouraged to join the "Mission: Smoke-free Philippines" group on Facebook! Pwede na rin isali ang lahat ng mga kakilala ninyo sa FB.

You may also contact the groups founder, Tony Abundabar, through 0919 826 1895 if you want to do more or provide support. He also has set up a blog at http://missionsmokefree.blogspot.com/.

Magkaisa tayo para sa kalusugan ng lahat. A healthy nation is a wealthy nation.

A reminder that tobacco farming is not at all as good as the tobacco industry claims it to be

Dry spell dries out Ilocos Sur tobacco farmers’ profits

By NIKKA CORSINOAugust 12, 2010

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/198385/news/specialreports/dry-spell-dries-out-ilocos-sur-tobacco-farmers-profits

The dry spell caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon has dried out the river irrigating tobacco fields in Ilocos Sur, the country’s largest producer of tobacco.

The tobacco leaves in scarcely irrigated fields have then become of poor quality and have been bought at much lower prices by the traders.

The sharp dip in the income of tobacco farmers has made Ilocos Sur the fourth poorest province in Region 1, composed of the provinces of Dagupan City, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, and Pangasinan. 

From 2000 to 2003, Ilocos Sur was the frontrunner in Region 1 in “poverty incidence improvement," an indication of better incomes for the majority of the population. From 2003 to 2006, however, Ilocos ranked last in poverty incident improvement in Region 1.

Each kilo of tobacco leaves sells for about P70, but these are graded first from AA (high-quality) to R (rejects) by the traders buying them. 
Nikka Corsino

In contrast, poverty incidence in the province—the proportion of people who cannot afford basic food and non-food requirements— went up from 22.8 percent in 2003 to 27.2 percent in 2006, the National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB) reported in 2008. 

San Emilio town, a producer of Virginia and burley tobacco, is the fourth poorest municipality in Ilocos Sur, with a poverty incidence of 41.21 percent, according to 2003 estimates by the NSCB.

Out of San Emilio town’s 6,920 residents (based on 2003 statistics), about 1,800 persons are classified as poor.

Nonetheless, in 2009, San Emilio town produced 984 metric tons (MT) of Virginia, native, and burley tobacco, the fifth largest production among Ilocos Sur province’s 29 tobacco-producing municipalities. 

In the same crop year, Ilocos Sur province produced 67 percent of the over 21,000 metric tons (MT) of tobacco produced in Region 1, the National Tobacco Administration (NTA) reported.

It was during this crop year, 2009, that Ilocos Sur's agriculture sector suffered one of its heaviest beatings when typhoon “Pepeng" ravaged the province in October 2009.

The damage to agricultural crops was estimated at P890 million and to infrastructure, P181 million, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) reported.

Costly production

Putting aside the devastating effects of the El Niño weather phenomenon, tobacco production is by itself very labor-intensive and costly.

Producing the Virginia type of tobacco, the kind that most farmers in the region choose to plant, is the costliest of all.

Most of the Ilocos Sur farmers prefer to plant Virginia tobacco because it sells for the highest price in the market, ranging from P71 per kilo to as much as P85, compared to only P20 a kilo for the lowest quality of tobacco. 

The production cost for Virginia tobacco about P146,000 per hectare, compared to around P120,000 for other varieties, the NTA estimates. The cost includes expenses for materials, labor, field activities, and repairs. 

Ilocos farmers often do not plant more than a hectare of tobacco because of their limited resources. 

They usually have to wait for five months before starting to earn, because planting season starts in October or November, while the harvest season would start only in April or June of the following year.

Cowboys

The high cost of tobacco production pushes the farmers to be dependent on borrowed capital. 

Borrowing cash from a tobacco trading company or a middleman (usually called a “cowboy,") is commonly known as “contract growing," a system where farmers are obliged to sell their crops to the lenders.

George Rubang, a farmer in Candon City in Ilocos Sur, has been planting the cheaper kind of tobacco for 20 years but has recently decided to plant the costlier and more full-flavored Virginia tobacco.

To produce Virginia tobacco, Rubang had to borrow P150,000 from Fortune Tobacco, one of the largest buyers of tobacco produce in the region. 

“Siyempre doon [sa full-flavor type] lang may nagpapautang, eh wala naman akong pagkukunan ng puhunan, kaya doon ako, (Companies only lend to producers of Virginia tobacco. As I had no capital, I opted for that)," Rubang said.

Most Ilocos farmers resort to contract-growing--borrowing capital from lenders--in order to plant tobacco. Part of this agreement is for the farmers to sell their produce only to their lenders, often at lower prices.Nikka Corsino

"Masyadong maraming gastos sa pagtatanim. Masyadong maraming tao at tubig ang kailangan niya para makuha iyong tamang kulay ng tabako. Eh mahina ang tubig dito sa amin, kaya mahirap palaguin, (There are so many so many farming costs. So many people are needed and water is very much needed to get the right color of the tobacco. Because water is scarce in our area, it is very difficult to raise Virginia tobacco)" Rubang said. 

Rubang said that planting the cheaper or “neutral" type of tobacco seems to be more beneficial for him personally. Although that kind of tobacco sold at a lower price, lesser production expenses are incurred. 

“Mas maganda iyong sa neutral dahil mas kakaunti ang trabaho. Hindi mo na kailangang tanggalan ng bulaklak at lagyan ng gamot. Mas kaunti rin ang tubig at abonong kailangan" (The neutral kind is better because lesser work is needed. You don’t have to remove the flowers or put insecticides. Lesser water and fertilizers are also needed)," he explained.

Rubang estimates that he would earn less when he harvests the Virginia tobacco he planted because aside from his P150,000 loan, he also incurred higher labor and other costs.

“Mahina ang kita. Maayos sana kung lahat ng grado ng tabako ay AA at maganda ang presyo niya, pero ang tanong, may grado naman nang mababa ang klase, may P70, may P55, iba-iba. (The income is low. It would have been good if all the tobacco leaves are graded AA because the price would be high. However, there are lower grades that can get only P70 or P55 per kilo)," he said.

Grading of tobacco leaves 

Before being sold, tobacco leaves are graded from AA (high-quality) to R (reject), with seven other grades in between. These correspond to floor prices that are adjusted yearly as prescribed by the NTA. 

For crop year 2010-2011, the prices set by the NTA range from P33 per kilo for rejects to P71 per kilo for the AA grade of tobacco. 

Under the prevailing rates, a hectare of tobacco plantation with an average yield of 2,000 kilos of tobacco, would give a farmer a minimum gross profit of P142,000, if all the leaves are graded AA.

The grading of tobacco, says a group of farmers who have shifted to planting other crops, is allegedly often a root of exploitation that keep its farmers poor. 

“Iyang mga cowboys at traders, idodowngrade nila ang tabako. Sa halip na A or AA, sasabihin nila C. Wala namang magagawa ang farmer diyan, (Those cowboys and traders, they will downgrade the quality of the tobacco. Instead of A or AA, they will say C. There’s nothing that farmers can do about it)" said Avelino Dacanay of the farmers’ group Solidarity of Peasants Against Exploitation (STOP-Exploitation). 

Farmers' groups claim that the discretionary and ocular grading system often results in the downgrading--and therefore cheaper selling prices--of tobacco. Nikka Corsino

As farmers can only sell their produce to the trader or cowboy who lent them the capital, they are left with no option but to sell at downgraded rates. 

The grading of tobacco, based only on ocular inspection, remains at the trader’s or cowboy’s discretion. 

STOP-Exploitation is pushing for the abolition of the multi-tiered grading system because tobacco redrying companies process the leaves of various grades altogether. 

Once bought, tobacco leaves are brought to tobacco redrying plants for processing. 

“Nakita namin iyong mga redrying plant noon, sama-sama naman na lahat ng tabako, iisa na lang, walang classification, (We saw the redrying plants before, all the leaves are processed together, there is no classification)" Dacanay said. 

“Kaya sana nga ang pinaglalaban namin ay wala nang classification sa tabako. Pero ayaw ng mga traders, dahil doon sila kumukuha ng kita, (We are fighting for a policy where tobacco leaves no longer have to be classified. However, traders are against this because this is where they get their profits)" Dacanay explained. 

“Sa middleman, kunwari ang napag-usapan niyo ay 25 percent iyong pupunta sa kanyang tabako, gagawin niyang 30 percent ‘pag nakita niyang maganda iyong quality ng tabako mo. Wala ka namang magagawa kasi wala kang pinirmahan eh. Wala kang pinanghahawakang papeles, (With middlemen, they pretend that they will get a 25 percent cut on the sale of the tobacco. When they see that you have a good grade of tobacco, they will raise this to 30 percent. You can do nothing because there’s no legal contract)," Rubang said. 

Transactions with cowboys are often informal and verbal, and most farmers simply sign on the trader’s notebook, indicating the amount they borrowed. 

Rubang clarified that his loan with Fortune Tobacco, a large company, has all the necessary paperwork.

Many tobacco farmers, however, still prefer to deal with cowboys because they wouldn’t have to go from their remote locations all the way to trading centers in the provincial capital.

Tobacco farmers dealing with big traders often have to shoulder additional costs to transport their goods to the provincial capital. 

Lack of options

Dacanay, who has planted tobacco until 1995, has switched to planting corn ever since. 

Dacanay explained that it is easier to plant corn which yields almost the same price as tobacco. 

“Ang tabako kasi after six months ka pa lang makakapagbenta. Ang mais ay 72 days lang pwede nang mailuto. Pangatlong beses na naming magtanim ng mais, isang beses pa lang sa tabako. At ang mais, kapag nataniman at naabonohan mo na, aantayin mo na lang. Sa tabako hindi, araw-araw ka dapat andito sa bukid, (With tobacco, you can only sell after six months. With corn, after only 72 days, it can be cooked already. We would have already planted corn three times during the period that we have planted tobacco only once. With corn, once you have planted it and put fertilizer, you would just wait for the harvest time. With tobacco, you have to be at the farm everyday)," Dacanay said.

According to estimates from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS), corn farmers earn an average of P23.71 per kilo, compared to only P15.82 per kilo for tobacco farmers. 

The average production cost for corn is estimated at P6.15 per kilo, much lower than the P36 per kilo production cost for tobacco. 

According to the January to March 2010 data of the BAS, national tobacco production went up by 9.66 percent compared to the same period last year. 

The tobacco yield for the first quarter of 2010 is 10.67 MT, compare to only 9.73 MT in the same period last year. 

The BAS attributed the higher yield to the shift to tobacco farming from yellow corn planting in Abra province. 

A bag of fertilizer for a hectare of tobacco

The billions in excise tax share that the Ilocos Region has been entitled to since 1993 through Republic Act (RA) 7171 or An Act to Promote the Development of the Farmers in the Virginia Tobacco-Producing Provinces should have given much-needed relief to debt-burdened tobacco farmers. 

Since its enactment, about P11 billion had been released to the Ilocos provinces, half of which went to Ilocos Sur because it produces the highest volume of Virginia tobacco. 

When asked how RA 7171 has benefited them, however, farmers often find themselves at a loss.

“Iyan ang problema naming mga magsasaka ngayon. May mga ibibigay naman silang isang kaban ng abono, pero anong silbi noon? Paghahati-hatian pa ng tatlong farmer. Ang laki ng [RA] 7171, tapos isa lang ang ibibigay for the entire season, (That’s a problem for us farmers today. They give us one sack of fertilizer but what good is that? Three farmers even have to divide it among themselves. RA 7171 is huge but they will only give us one sack of fertilizer for the entire season), " said one farmer in Ilocos Sur. 

A hectare of land, he added, needs around 25 sacks of fertilizers, which include ammonium sulfate and urea, one sack of which amounts to P512 and P893, respectively. 

The farmer added that the only RA 7171-funded project he knows of is a warehouse that doubles as a solar dryer for crops during the rainy season. 

Local governments have reportedly mostly spent the RA 7171 fund for infrastructure projects such as multipurpose pavements and centers, farm-to-market roads, solar dryers, and barangay halls. 

The farmers said government subsidy of their production costs would have helped them lessen the debts they incur every planting season.

“Iyong puhunan lang namin ang talagang problema. Kaming mga farmer, kung hindi na kami uutang, hindi na kami makakapagtanim (Capital is really a big problem for us. If we will not borrow money, we will not be able to plant)," said one farmer in La Union. 

An official of the NTA acknowledges the issues raised by the farmers.

“Ang complaint ng mga farmers, wala silang nakukuhang direct benefits. Indirect lang, kasi ginagamit sa infrastructure, sa daanan, na mabebenepisyuhan sila, pero indirectly.. Mga eskwelahan para sa mga anak at apo nila, kaya lang kung tutuusin ang gusto nila, kahit konting subsidy lang (The complaint of the farmers is that they do not get direct benefits, only indirect because the fund is used for infrestructure such as roads which will also benefit them but indirectly, or schools for their children and grandchildren. In the end, what they want is a little subsidy)" the NTA official said, adding that subsidizing 30 to 50 percent of the production cost would greatly ease the farmers’ burdens. 

Dacanay said the farmers are not seeking a full subsidy from the government, lest that cultivates a culture of dependency among the farmers. 

He said, however, at times like this when the El Niño phenomenon has made tobacco farming more difficult, a government subsidy would be beneficial. –VVP, GMANews.TV