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| Led by Akbayan representatives Perci Cerdaña and Chel Diokno, a wellness walk pushed for the passing of a "Healthy Food Environment Bill" in the legislative sector. Ivan Saldajeno |
QUEZON CITY—A group of advocates that is said to be "working on policy solutions to public health problems" picked the right place to begin its campaign to help consumers take a closer look at the food they eat.
ImagineLaw, originally a group of lawyers, before more advocates came on, launched its drive for the legislative chambers to pass a bill that would help in providing more information about the consumers' food intake through a wellness walk during "Car-Free Morato" on Sunday along Tomas Morato Avenue.
ImagineLaw members and some community fitness groups in this city walked and jogged throughout the entire 600-meter area of the said highway enclosed specifically for Car-Free Morato—from the corner of Roces Avenue to the Boy Scouts Circle—to make their calls for the said food marketing reforms known.
In line with the Philippine Heart Month, the event was aptly called "Step Up for Healthier Hearts".
"This event really is a call for our government to pass a 'Healthy Food Environment Bill', which advocates for front-of-pack warning labels, as well as regulation of marketing of unhealthy food for children," Sophia San Luis, ImagineLaw's executive director, told Dugout Philippines about the wellness walk.
She then explained that they wanted FOPWLs added to the packaging so consumers would have an idea about the risks of eating certain food like those high in sodium, sugar, calories, and fat.
According to San Luis, FOPWLs make the risks of eating too much of a certain food easier to understand.
"You have to compute the nutritional facts on the back of the package to find out if it's unhealthy or not. You have to multiply the number of servings depending on how much already eaten," she further said, citing cases where consumers would tend to buy larger packs of chips by themselves, which is usually good for multiple servings.
"In contrast, with warning labels, you don't have to make any computations anymore. The government does that for you."
San Luis then said that they based their call to regulate the marketing of junk food to kids on a recent UNICEF study, saying that 90 percent of online advertisements cater to a very young audience.
"They use children as actors, and then the messaging and design, they use cartoons. Really, they want children to eat unhealthy, ultra-processed food, and we want to stop that so that children are better equipped to make good, healthy decisions for themselves," she further said.
Akbayan Party-List representatives Chel Diokno and Perci Cerdana graced the event as special guests and joined the full wellness walk, as well as signed on the commitment wall.
"We're very happy because the entire Akbayan bloc supported the bill. They all filed the Healthy Food Environment Bill together," San Luis continued, adding that more than 60 representatives, regardless of their political allegiance, threw their support for the legislative proposal.
She then expressed confidence that too much politics would not get in the way, especially with the presidential race starting to heat up, even if there are still two years to go before the next elections.
"I don't think this is a political move. This is really them recognizing the need for a healthy food environment in the Philippines," San Luis further said, although she is expecting a huge challenge from food manufacturing giants who would likely express opposition to the bill.
With an HFE Bill already proposed in the lower chamber, San Luis now hopes the upper chamber will make the move very soon.
"Right now, we're still working to get the Senate to file a bill, so we're talking to legislators, really hoping that they will file," she said, adding that they are pushing for Senator Risa Hontiveros, who initially filed the HFE Bill when she was still an Akbayan congresswoman, to file it again at the Senate level.
Another proposal ImagineLaw is advocating is the "Sodium Reformulation Bill", which aims to regulate the amount of sodium in commonly-consumed food.
According to San Luis, they are pushing for condiments mainly made of potassium and unique preparation methods as alternatives to putting too much salt or any other sodium-based flavoring on food, as well as a five-year transition window for Filipinos to get used to the new food processing styles.
While "Step Up for Healthier Hearts" was essentially a special sidelight during the weekly free open run period along Morato, San Luis looks forward to the possibility of fully organizing a fun run out of it.
"We're talking about that. It's going to be very expensive to mount, but maybe in the future, we can do that as well," she concluded.
Some participants joined in a free Zumba session, while others took part in a medical check-up, where they were measured for blood pressure, blood sugar content, and the tendency to contract kidney diseases.
