With unsolicited and even unwelcome advice flying at him from all directions, our president-in-waiting would do well to ignore those he deems unnecessary or unwarranted. But one piece of advice that he has chosen to shelve in the meantime needs to be put on the front-burner, even if he has argued that given the many demands on his time and attention he needs to put his priorities in order.

Commenting on Noynoy Aquino’s smoking habit, several health practitioners have suggested that he give up on cigarettes not only for his own health—not a minor concern—but also to set an example for young people and other smokers like him, given that health complications linked to smoking, such as nicotine addiction, pulmonary stress, cardiovascular disorders and all sorts of cancers have become a major public health concern.

Even the very act of smoking poses dangers not just to the smoker himself—our president-to-be in this case—but even to people around him. Studies have shown that so-called second-hand smoke, the noxious fumes that emanate from the mouths of smokers, are even more fraught with risks for those who inhale it. As explained by anti-smoking activists, this is because the exhaled smoke mixes with other impurities in the air before they enter the air passages of so-called “passive” smokers.

Doctors have even warned of “third-hand smoke,” the poisonous remnants of cigarette smoke that settle on furniture, pillows, bed sheets and other materials that still pose harm to those exposed to them, especially helpless children and other non-smoking members of a household who have not chosen to take up the vice of smoking but are nonetheless exposed to the same health hazards.

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THIS may indeed be the most powerful argument that, it is hoped, will convince Aquino to prioritize the curbing of his harmful habit before he takes on the highest office of the land.

It’s a matter of human rights, the right not just of smokers to health and safety, but also of non-smokers not to be exposed to harmful elements such as those contained in cigarette smoke and its leavings against their will and without their knowledge.

In particular, it’s a matter of the right of children to health and safety, even if the source of harm is a parent or both parents.

True, never having been a smoker, I don’t know how much of an emotional and physical crutch smoking can be, especially in times of stress. But I also know several former smokers who managed to cut the habit, and however difficult it was to free themselves of their nicotine addiction, managed to forswear smoking altogether. Also, Aquino can consult any number of health professionals who would only be too willing to provide guidance on how best he could quit the habit. It is not impossible and is easier than he thinks, at least according to these doctors.

A bit of wisdom he might want to heed is that while smoking for several decades, as Aquino has doubtless done, would already have taken a toll on his health, the earlier a smoker quits the better. The benefits can be as short-term as reviving one’s taste buds, finally being able to breathe freely, and saying goodbye to stained fingers and teeth. Long-term benefits are too many to mention.

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WHEN he finally takes his oath of office and assumes the presidency, I do hope Noynoy will continue to respect and recognize a recent action of the Department of Health that, however “midnight” it might seem, is of inestimable value to public health.

Last Monday, Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral signed an administrative order requiring the use of “graphic warnings” on cigarette packaging. While at the moment cigarette packs contain the warning that “Smoking is Hazardous to Health,” the administrative order requires that this warning be shown “graphically,” that is, through photos of the physical consequences of smoking, such as blackened lungs, ulcerated tongues and mouths, even amputated limbs.

A law requiring such graphic warnings had been filed in the previous Congress but failed to make it through the House, presumably in the face of vigorous lobbying by tobacco manufacturers. The administrative order is based on a Supreme Court ruling that the DOH is vested with the inherent right “to protect the health of the Filipino people especially during epidemics and circumstances of clear and present danger that cannot be duly addressed by legislation.”

Graphic warnings are already required and are in use in Thailand, Hong Kong and Europe.

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DURING a workshop on “Women, Media and Tobacco,” participants were given the chance to take a look at samples of such cigarette packs bearing graphic warnings. Believe me, seeing such lurid and at times bloody pictures, I was completely turned off from tobacco. I didn’t even want to touch the packaging, and if Filipino smokers, confronted with such “evidence” of what smoking was and could be doing to their bodies, then they truly need help to get over their addiction.

That’s why I hope the DoH sends copies of the proposed graphic warnings to Noynoy Aquino soon. This not just so he would be convinced to continue to support the initiative and resist the importunings of the tobacco lobby, but also so that he would make up his mind sooner rather than later to give up a habit that has been proven to be detrimental to his health and to those around him.

I’m willing to concede that smoking is a “minor” vice compared to such vices as greed, venality, treason and violence. But it is still a vice, and a harmful habit, at that, and unseemly in a man who promises to lead us to a brighter future.

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