Former Health and Education Secretaries and Officials, CSC Heads Appeal to President Marcos to Designate DOH as Head of PH Delegation to the Global Tobacco Control Talks

Former Secretaries and senior officials of the Department of Health (DOH), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and Department of Education (DepEd), along with former leadership of the Civil Service Commission (CSC), have issued a joint public statement urging President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to designate the DOH as head of the Philippine delegation to the 11th Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), which will convene this month in Geneva, Switzerland.

In their statement, the former officials emphasized that the Philippines’ leadership in COP11 is a matter of national credibility, public health protection, and global health diplomacy. They stressed that the WHO FCTC is a global health treaty, and therefore the delegation should be led by the agency mandated to safeguard the health and well-being of Filipinos.

The signatories noted that tobacco causes approximately 112,000 deaths in the Philippines every year, calling them “preventable losses” that underscore the need for government leadership that places public health above commercial and industry interests.

They also highlighted that the Philippines is currently serving as President of the 78th World Health Assembly under DOH Secretary Teodoro Herbosa. Allowing the DOH to head the Philippine delegation, they said, would reinforce consistency with this leadership role and strengthen the country’s standing in global health governance.

The statement further recalled that during COP10 in Panama, the Philippines received its fifth ‘Dirty Ashtray’ Award—a public rebuke for perceived alignment with tobacco industry interests in international negotiations. The signatories warned that repeating this misstep at COP11, particularly during National Children’s Month, would damage the country’s credibility and weaken efforts to protect young people from nicotine addiction.

The former officials emphasized: “Public health must come before profit.”

They called on President Marcos to ensure that the DOH leads the COP11 delegation so that the Philippines may “demonstrate genuine commitment to protecting the Filipino people’s right to health and reaffirm the nation’s integrity in global health diplomacy.”

The full statement, including the list of signatories, is now publicly available.

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