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Putting pressure on the Philippines
There was a time, before the creation of the
International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, when
formula companies could market their products however they chose to.
And it must be said that they devised creative ways to keep babies
away from breastmilk and firmly attached to formula bottles. Formula
company saleswomen dressed as nurses roamed the halls of the world’s
hospitals, and doctors on the formula payroll dolled out tins of
formula to mothers everywhere.
But the world is changing. Every year more
countries pass laws prohibiting the aggressive advertising of
breastmilk substitutes — five more countries have done so in the past
two years alone — and the formula companies are getting scared. What
else could explain the outrageous action American formula
manufacturers have taken against a Filipino breastfeeding-protection
law that would ban formula advertising in the country.
After years of dedicated campaigning by Filipino
activists, this summer the Philippines Department of Health decided to
implement extremely strong laws on the marketing of breastmilk
substitutes, known as the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of
Executive Order 51. The IRR would strengthen the country’s existing
breastfeeding-protection laws and effectively ban the marketing of
infant formula, bringing national regulations into line with the
International Code and subsequent, relevant resolutions of the World
Health Assembly.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the IRR of
EO 51 are essential to the health and wellbeing of the people of the
Philippines. Out of 56 countries which have performed a National
Demographic and Health Study in the past ten years, the Philippines
ranks the lowest in breastfeeding rates. Only 16 per cent of Filipino
children are exclusively breastfed four to five months.
More lives of Filipino children could be saved by
raising breastfeeding rates than by any other single intervention. The
World Health Organization estimates that 10,000 infant deaths could be
saved by improved breastfeeding practices in the country, and has
called the implementation of the IRR a critical step in that
direction. A study1 conducted in the Philippines has shown that when
mothers fail to initiate or cease breastfeeding it results in an
eight- to ten-fold increase in diarrheal mortality.
Dec 6, 2006: (left and below) Members of
Philippine NGO Arugaan march on the Supreme Court to protest the
temporary restraining order applied to new breastfeeding protection
laws.
But despite the vital role that the IRR would play
in promoting the health of Filipino children, major American formula
companies, fearing the loss of another national market, have acted
quickly to block the IRR. Abbott Ross, Mead Johnson, and Wyeth, along
with the Swiss-owned Gerber, enlisted the Pharmaceutical and Health
Care Association of the Philippines (PHAP) to challenge the law in the
Filipino supreme court. In its submission to the court, the
association said the new rules were unfair because it would cost the
formula companies USD$ 128 million to comply with them, USD$ 120
million of which would be in lost sales.
The PHAP sought a restraining order that would tie
up the IRR in a legal battle and delay their institution indefinitely.
The formula companies also enlisted the help of the US Chamber of
Commerce (COC). COC president Thomas Donahue wrote a letter to
Filipino president Gloria Arroyo warning that the implementation of
the IRR would pose a "risk to the reputation of the Philippines as
a stable and viable destination for investment."
The supreme court initially denied PHAP’s request
for a restraining order, but under this pressure from the USA it
amazingly reversed its own decision a month later, four days after the
letter from Donahue. The restraining order was issued and the IRR have
yet to be implemented.
Outraged by this attempt to block Filipino efforts
to safeguard the health of their infants, activists both inside the
country and overseas launched a campaign to support the department of
health and the implementation of the IRR. A trip to the country by
INFACT Canada’s Betty Sterken and Baby Milk Action UK’s Patti Rundall
demonstrated international solidarity with the people of the
Philippines and garnered much media attention.
The pair appeared on television and gave press
conferences, and their visit ended up on the front page of many of the
country’s newspapers. This is rare in the Philippines, where criticism
of multinational corporations is usually restricted as the economy is
heavily dependent on their investment.
* * *
The fight to implement the IRR took a huge blow on
December 6 when Assistant Solicitor General Nestor J. Ballocillo, the
government attorney who was defending the regulations from PHAP
attacks, was murdered along with his son Benedict on the way to work.
Political assassinations are frequent in the
Philippines, and there is no direct evidence that Ballocillo was
killed because of his support for breastfeeding. He was a liberal
solicitor who took on many cases against the country’s powerful elite.
However, he was only working on two high-profile cases at the time of
his murder, one of which was the baby milk case. The other involved
the government expropriation of airport land, a case which has already
seen one judge assassinated.
The solicitor general has vowed that the struggle
to implement the IRR will go on despite the murder, and support for
the IRR continues to pour in from around the world. The new
regulations have been approved by the World Health Assembly, the World
Health Organization, UNICEF and the World Alliance for Breastfeeding
Action. The government of the Philippines has both the legal and moral
authority to enact laws to protect the health of its citizens, and the
action taken by American companies amounts to an attack on the
sovereignty of the Filipino nation. |
