SC allows ex-DOH chiefs to intervene in cigarette case

The Supreme Court (SC) has granted a motion of former health secretaries to intervene in the case of the Department of Health versus Mighty Tobacco Corporation and a Malolos, Bulacan Trial Court in connection with a Department of Health (DOH) administrative order on the inclusion of graphic health warnings in cigarette packaging.

In a 39-page motion for leave to intervene, former Health Secretaries Francisco Duque III, Jaime Galvez-Tan, Alberto Romualdez, Alfredo Bengzon and Esperanza Cabral, the one who issued the order herself, maintained that all cigarette manufacturers have to comply with the order requiring the inclusion of pictures depicting harmful effects of cigarettes on their packaging.

They said “the meddling of the tobacco industry is preventing the DOH from carrying out its mandate to protect and preserve the health and lives of Filipinos.”

Mighty Corporation, producer of “Sweetened” cigarettes and American-blended tobacco products, was able to secure an injunction order from the Malolos, Bulacan Regional Trial Court Branch 15 restraining the DOH from implementing DOH Administrative Order No. 13 also known as the “Graphic Health Information Order” issued in May 2010. Thus, the case pending before the high court filed by the Health Department.

Fortune Tobacco, owned by business tycoon Lucio Tan, also managed to secure an injunction order in Marikina City.

In a press statement, intervenors noted a World Health Organization study placing the number of deaths of Filipino from Tobacco smoke at 240 a day, “making it an alarming public health crisis.”