Painting the future: reclaiming our neighborhoods from harm

One of my fondest childhood memories is running home with a warm bowl of champorado from
the sari-sari store around the corner.  For many Filipino kids, being sent to the sari-sari store to
buy suka, mantika, or other essentials is a formative experience. It is one of our first small
adventures, a test of independence, and for most a rite of passage.
Despite modern conveniences, sari-sari stores have endured because they are more than just
retail spaces. Built into homes and run by families, they are community hubs woven into the
rhythm of daily life. With their high foot traffic and deep roots, they have become prime real
estate for advertising. 
For decades, beverage and alcohol brands competed to plaster sari-sari stores with branded
tarpaulins. But in recent years a more troubling shift has emerged. In place of soda and alcohol
ads, store walls are now painted to mimic cigarette packaging. The bright red walls are
impossible to miss, as entire neighborhoods have been transformed into tobacco billboards.
Other brands have followed suit, and have expanded to eateries, bakeries, and other stalls.
As stores became saturated with ads for addictive and harmful products, cigarettes, alcohol,
and sugary drinks have cemented themselves as fixtures in Filipino life, ever-present at
gatherings, on television, and in the very places we call home. Their ubiquity has desensitized
us to their risks and embedded them in the consciousness of the young minds. 
This is precisely what the Manila episode of Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix captured –  a
perfectly Filipino moment with humble food, warm hospitality, and a tobacco ad sneaking into
the frame. As the show celebrated our culture, it inadvertently exposed just how normalized
tobacco advertising has become in our daily lives. So normalized that it now appears in global
media without anyone batting an eye. Scenes like these matter, and simply blurring out harmful
signage can make a difference.
It’s disheartening that as Filipino food is finally having a moment on the world stage, tobacco is
stealing the spotlight. But it’s hardly surprising. In almost every neighborhood, every captured
moment is marked, or more aptly, marred by a tobacco ad in the background, as store owners
become easy prey for corporations that pay little to nothing for such exposure. 
What are a few tarpaulins here, a few cans of paint there, in exchange for 24/7 visibility?
Certainly not a bargain for the communities that bear the true cost in disease, in untimely
deaths, and in children who grow up seeing these ads daily and accepting them as normal long
before they understand their real consequences.
I’m lucky that my earliest memory of a sari-sari store was of buying comfort food on my own.
Not every child has that kind of memory. For some, their first errand may have been to buy
cigarettes or alcohol, a chore made possible by their accessibility and omnipresent marketing.
Advertising for tobacco, unlike other harmful products, is regulated under existing laws. But the
rules are riddled with gaps especially when it comes to advertising at points-of-sale.
Corporations exploit these loopholes through signage and storefront makeovers that effectively
turn sari-sari stores into larger-than-life tobacco ads. 

And it seems their strategy is working. Smoking and vaping among Filipino youth are rising at
alarming rates. We know that early exposure to advertising is a proven driver of initiation, and
the more visible these ads are, the easier for kids to believe that trying them is just part of
growing up.
Baguio City has shown what’s possible when it cracked down on illegal tobacco signages with
visible, or rather no longer visible, results. Other local governments need to catch up.
Our national agencies must do their part too. A nationwide clean-up is long overdue. The Inter-
Agency Committee on Tobacco exists for this very reason. It must act with urgency to hold
corporations accountable for rampant displays of tobacco ads in outdoor spaces through illegal
tarps, signages, and entire storefronts.
Enforcement alone will never be enough. If we truly care about the future of our children and
communities, we need to go further. It’s time to adopt an absolute ban on tobacco advertising,
promotion, and sponsorship. No loopholes. No tarps. No painted walls.
Our ASEAN neighbors, LAO PDR, Myanmar, Singapore, and Thailand, have already
implemented absolute or comprehensive bans. The Philippines shouldn’t lag behind.
And while we’re at it, we must begin to confront the unchecked marketing of other harmful
products in spaces where children live, play, and grow.
I hope the next generation remembers sari-sari stores the way I do, for the thrill and joy of being
trusted to buy something on their own, not for the first time they purchased a cigarette or a
bottle of alcohol. And I hope our sari-sari stores continue to endure as a uniquely Filipino pillar
of community and a space for childhood wonder.

Fatima Laperal is the Executive Director of HealthJustice, a nonprofit organization which aims to
bridge the gap between health and law through evidence-based advocacy and reform. The
organization champions policies that protect children and communities from the harms of
tobacco and unhealthy food.