BACKGROUND: The Philippines implemented Republic Act 10643, or the Graphic Health Warnings Law, in accordance with the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Article 11 to warn about the harms of tobacco use. The Graphic Health Warnings Law requires all tobacco products in the Philippines to bear graphic health warnings on their packaging. This study aims to assess tobacco industry compliance with the requirements of the Graphic Health Warnings Law and identify challenges of multi-sectoral tobacco governance in the Philippines.
METHODS: We adapted the Tobacco Pack Surveillance System protocol to collect a sample of unique tobacco products across the country. We coded and assessed packs using both the Codebook from the protocol and the Department of Health’s Graphic Health Warnings Law checklist.
RESULTS: We collected 109 unique tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars, moist snuff, and rolling tobacco, with only six packs (5.5%) being fully compliant with the Graphic Health Warnings Law. Seven packs did not have graphic health warnings on any display surface, and four only had stickers for graphic health warnings.
CONCLUSIONS: There is low compliance with the Graphic Health Warnings Law in the Philippines. Policymakers and enforcement agencies need to improve enforcement and compliance monitoring. Nevertheless, there are difficulties in implementing and interpreting the law. Critical policy amendments and moving towards plain packaging could mitigate these difficulties. Policymakers need to consider the conflict of interest of the tobacco industry as a part of the Philippines’ multi-sectoral tobacco governance model.