Mareng Winnie tackles the dangers of cigarette smoking
Winnie Monsod is, first and foremost, a renowned economist and economics professor but she is better known today as one of the TV industry's leading opinion makers. What sets her apart from many commentators is that she backs her ideas with cold, hard facts. What's more, she doesn't mince words and calls a spade a dirty shovel when it's needed and its needed most of the time. You only have to watch her on "Bawal ang Pasaway kay Mareng Winnie" (Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on GMA News TV) to appreciate her work.
On June 29, she tackled the issue of cigarette smoking and its effects on a person's health as well as the nation's economy. She interviewed a medical doctor who enumerated the dangers of nicotine addiction. It could lead to a non-severe ailment called COPD or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which refers to "a group of conditions that block airflow and make breathing more difficult." These include "emphysema, breathlessness caused by damage to the air sacs and chronic bronchitis, coughing with a lot of mucus." The more serious complications: lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases. In the case of stage 3 and stage 4 lung cancer, the chances of survival are almost nil.
It was clear that Winnie was trying scare viewers who smoked into dropping their deadly addiction.
The economist in her elicited from the good doctor the financial consequences arising from diseases caused by cigarette smoking. It ranges from one hundred pesos a day for medication that a patient needs to take for the rest of his life for a simple illness to as much as half a million pesos for surgery.
Winnie then brought in Tina Velasco, MMDA Assistant General Manager to speak about her agency's resolve to implement the provisions of Republic Act 9211 starting July 1. The law bans smoking in public places like schools, bus stations, food preparation areas, public transportation. The penalty for violators is P500 or eight hours of community service. For the moth of June, the MMDA merely issued warnings and according to Ms Velasco, the MMDA apprehended as much as 500 persons a day.
On a lighter vein, the show featured interviews by Love Añover with smokers and why they haven't stopped the habit despite their awareness of the dangers to their health. The common answer: "nakasanayan na." In other words, it's hard to break a habit. Non-smokers were also interviewed and interestingly enough, most of them had tried smoking before.
The piece de resistance, however, was Winnie's final comment on the subject matter. She admitted that she started smoking before she was 15 and consumed as much as three packs a day. She only stopped at the age of 50 after six attempts so she is very much involved in this subject matter. She then weighed the positive and negative effects of curbing smoking.
A study in 2006 showed that if tobacco companies stopped manufacturing cigarettes, the government would lose P26 billion pesos in taxes. That's a huge amount considering the budgetary needs of the country. Winnie then compared that loss to the amount of money spent on health care for diseases caused by smoking—P148 billion.
What about the 39,000 tobacco farmers who would lose their income? Compare that, says Winnie, to the 86,000 deaths a year attributed to smoking. She praised the province of Nueva Vizcaya, where tobacco farming is a big source of revenue, for banning smoking in the entire province. She then appealed to the congressmen to approve the bill imposing increased excise taxes on cigarettes. That's one way, she said of slowing down cigarette consumption in the country.
How can you argue with those compelling arguments? As a parting shot, Winnie said, "Kung magagawa ko, magagawa 'nyo rin."