By Wilnard Bacelonia
MANILA – Flavored vape products marketed with descriptors attractive to minors are “100 percent smuggled” and were not licensed by regulators, a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) official said Monday during a Senate hearing on vaping regulations.
DTI Assistant Secretary Marcus Valdez II told the Senate Committee on Health and Demography that vape products with flavor descriptors such as food, desserts, or cartoon-themed branding did not pass the agency’s licensing process.
“If you see a product that has illegal flavor descriptors attractive to minors like food, dessert, cartoon characters, they did not pass through the DTI. So, 100 percent smuggled po sila (they are 100 percent smuggled),” Valdez said.
Valdez said enforcement against illegal vape products intensified in recent years.
According to the DTI, the market value of confiscated vape products rose from PHP5.4 million in 2023 to PHP32 million in 2024 and surged to PHP519 million in 2025.
For 2026, authorities have already seized around PHP10 million worth of vape products as of March, including PHP3.6 million confiscated during a joint operation with the Bureau of Internal Revenue last week.
The DTI also filed formal charges last year against online platforms Meta, Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop over sellers using their platforms to market unlicensed or substandard products, including vape devices.
Valdez warned that authorities may shut down online platforms if they fail to cooperate in preventing the sale of illegal vape products.
‘Gateway’ to nicotine addiction
Flavored vape products are a major reason why young people start using electronic cigarettes, raising concerns that vaping could serve as a gateway to nicotine addiction, according to the Department of Health (DOH).
“Nicotine dependence was found to be two times higher in e-cigarette users. Flavors were a major reason for the initiation of vaping in younger generation. Meaning it is a gateway for their addiction moving forward,” DOH Health Promotion Bureau Director Ma. Kristina Marasigan told the panel.
Marasigan noted that most countries in Southeast Asia have moved to ban vaping products.
“There are already eight ASEAN countries who already banned vape and it is only the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia na lamang po ang nagre-regulate pa ng vape (are still regulating vape),” she added.
During the hearing, Sen. Risa Hontiveros raised concerns about the growing accessibility of vape products to minors, citing aggressive marketing and appealing product designs.
“Colorful packaging. Sweet and fruity flavors. Aggressive online marketing. And the widespread availability of single-use devices. All of these make vape products highly attractive—and dangerously accessible—to minors,” Hontiveros said.
The Senate panel is deliberating several measures seeking to strengthen the regulation of tobacco and vaporized nicotine products and amend Republic Act 11900 or the Vaporized Nicotine and Non-Nicotine Products Regulation Act.
RA 11900 regulates the manufacture, importation, sale, packaging, distribution and use of vaporized nicotine and non-nicotine products in the country, including electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products.
Under the law, only plain tobacco and plain menthol flavors are permitted for vapor products.
It also prohibits the sale of these products to persons below 18 years old and restricts advertising, marketing and flavor descriptors that may appeal to minors. (PNA)
