FOR YEARS, tobacco companies have made smoking glamorous. They spent tons of money to convince consumers it was cool to smoke.

Although the all-out assault by tobacco companies on consumers has eased somehow, the beautiful images they created seem difficult to erase and smoking remains a major health problem.

So now, the World Health Organization (WHO) wants governments to show in more graphic ways the unglamorous and deadly side of tobacco use.

In a statement, the WHO noted that the tobacco industry spent vast sums of money to produce packaging that made a deadly product look safe and appealing. To counter the image this created in the public, it suggested that cigarette packets should instead show shocking photos of lung tumor, blood clots in the brain and decaying gums.

Doctor Shin Youngsoo, director of the Manila-based WHO regional office for the Western Pacific, said, ?Experience from around the world shows that pictorial warnings motivate users to quit and discourage people from starting.?

The international organization pointed out that tobacco was the world?s leading preventable cause of death and the only product that killed when used exactly as the manufacturer intended. Tobacco use accounted for the death of more than five million each year, a figure higher than the combined number of deaths from HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

In the Western Pacific region, which includes the Philippines, tobacco use was responsible for two deaths every minute, the WHO said.

Shin said, ?Countries have obligations to use health warnings on tobacco products as part of the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.? The strategy, he said, was an easy and cost-effective way to inform people about the hazards of tobacco use.

Problem at NAIA

Here is something that Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) general manager Alfonso Cusi might want to look into.

Ma. Cristina A. Agustin (Falcon) wrote to the Inquirer to bring to the attention of MIAA authorities her bad experience at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
Agustin said she was standing in line at 2 p.m. on May 28 at the China Airlines counter to check in for her flight back to the United States. Airport personnel (a man and a woman), after weighing her carry-on bag, told her it was over the seven-pound limit. They suggested that some of the things be transferred to her checked-in bags. ?Since they seemed respectful and helpful, I let the man handle some of my things,? she said.

But the assistance, it seemed, was not without a price. She lost her Sony cybershot camera. More than the loss of the camera, she is saddened by the loss of precious mementos of her happy reunion with her family.

She is also concerned that her experience would give her American husband a bad impression of Filipinos.

Feedback

I want to thank Nedo Sasing, a Boholano who now resides in Metro Manila, for clearing up the issue of ?gator fee? that a reader said was being charged by some resorts on Panglao Island in Bohol.

It seems the resort guards were misunderstood or failed to clarify what the charge was all about.

Sasing said he had been to the resorts on Panglao Island several times simply to enjoy the facilities for a day. During those visits he was asked to pay the ?day-tour fee,? consumable in the resorts? restaurants.

He added that during peak seasons, like Holy Week, it would be very difficult to get a room in Panglao?s resorts without advance booking.

Another e-mail sender, Leila Ceballos, seconded Sasing?s statement.

Ceballos said the fee being charged walk-in visitors was meant to discourage curious people (usiseros) who just wanted to see the inside of a resort for free. ?I think it is only fair that only legitimate customers should be allowed in because those resorts are private,? she said.

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