Top government officials in the Philippines sought to protect the tobacco industry’s economic interests at one of the most important global health gatherings in the world, according to newly uncovered documents.

The conference brings together representatives from more than 180 countries that are party to a landmark World Health Organization treaty that went into effect two decades ago. 

In the most recent edition, held in Panama, the Philippines joined some other tobacco-growing countries to block health experts from helping develop guidance on new regulations for the contents and emissions of tobacco products, hot-button subjects that the original authors of the treaty did not resolve. 

The treaty was also adopted before the industry made big bets on a slew of next-generation products, such as heated tobacco. 

Efforts to update and clarify the treaty, known as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, have long been a target of tobacco industry lobbying, which health experts say has gotten more aggressive. Industry officials are banned from attending the conference, which meets every two years, but that hasn’t stopped them from flooding hotels in host cities and working to influence country delegations.

Judith Mackay, a key architect of the treaty who attended the conference in Panama, said industry interference has become so intense that it threatens the viability of future negotiations. 

“It is rapidly becoming unmanageable,” she said. 

In the run-up to the conference, two departments within the Philippine government resolved to protect tobacco interests, documents from a government inquiry show. 

An official charged with executing the agenda of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the country’s delegation could not support “any measure” that would have an “adverse socio-economic impact to the tobacco growers, the industry and the entire tobacco sector in general,” documents show. The Department of Agriculture said in a position paper that the delegation should not support proposed guidelines on advertising restrictions that could decrease demand for tobacco. 

“It is completely unacceptable that a government would go to the [conference] and take the industry’s side,” said Ulysses Dorotheo, executive director of the advocacy group Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance. “The name of the convention itself is ‘Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,’ — not ‘tobacco promotion.’ ”

An impasse in Panama

The tobacco treaty, known as the FCTC, is one of the most significant achievements of the World Health Organization. Tobacco is one of the world’s biggest killers, responsible for an estimated 8 million deaths annually.

The treaty is credited with helping lower smoking rates across the globe. But it has limits. The tobacco industry has lobbied to weaken key provisions. There is no enforcement mechanism, so it is up to signatory countries to enact its provisions — leading some, including China, to not implement requirements, such as banning smoking in indoor public places. 

The convention to update the treaty is known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP. 

The most recent one was held in February 2024 at a convention center a few miles from Panama City's Casco Viejo historic district, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The conference site was heavily policed by armed Panamanian security forces to maintain security and make sure only those allowed could enter. 

Back in Casco Viejo, groups that have received funding from tobacco companies helped sponsor a pro-vaping counter-conference near a tree-lined square at the luxury Central Hotel Panama in an attempt to woo delegates.

In the convention center, the debate over who should populate a group informing guidance about tobacco content and emission regulations was especially fierce. After two decades of debate, countries still can’t agree on how they should address the addictiveness, toxicity and emissions of tobacco products. “This section has been left blank intentionally to indicate that guidance will be proposed at a later stage,” treaty guidelines say. 

On the agenda in Panama: an effort to break the logjam by appointing a committee to contribute to new guidelines. But the question of who should sit on the committee sparked more disagreement.

Most countries supported forming a committee of health experts, potentially chosen by the treaty’s executive body. Other countries proposed an alternative “working group” made up of individuals not required to have scientific expertise and nominated by individual countries. Some feared the latter could be a Trojan horse for tobacco industry interests.

“The tobacco industry is increasingly influencing the actions of more countries,” said Judith Mackay. She said these countries would ”undoubtedly” nominate “industry friendly people” to be on a working group. 

Documents obtained by The Examination show that while the Philippine Department of Health initially supported the proposed group of experts, both the Department of Agriculture and a key government official in charge of executing the president’s legislative agenda objected to it. The head of the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office, Mark Llandro “Dong” L. Mendoza, said such a group would exclude other important stakeholders, “such as representatives from a tobacco growing country like the Philippines.” 

The document signed by Mendoza argued that the Philippines, which had recently eased restrictions on vapes and heated tobacco, could showcase its experience regulating new nicotine products differently from cigarettes, a position that tobacco companies favor. The country, the document said, would provide lower- and middle-income countries with the “right example to protect public health without causing any damage to the economy.” 

Mendoza also wanted the Department of Trade and Industry, rather than the Department of Health, to lead the Philippines’ representation on a working group.

Such a development would be “very dangerous,” tobacco control advocate Dorotheo said. 

“Our Department of Trade has never been friendly to tobacco control and has always taken the side of the industry,” he said.

A ‘highly unusual and unprecedented’ proposal

At the Panama conference, the Philippine delegation ended up proposing what it called a “compromise” alternative, which would have made the experts accountable to a group of country representatives rather than to the conference’s governing body that includes all treaty parties. 

The proposal was labeled “highly unusual and unprecedented” by the convention’s administrative body. A lawyer for the conference explained that previous expert groups have reported their findings directly to the governing body.

He warned that the Philippines’ proposal could lead to a small group of countries controlling the expertise that is reported to the other parties to the treaty.

The debate over the expert group lasted four days, despite the “overwhelming” support for the original health expert option, according to the chair of the negotiations. The Philippines joined Jordan, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Guatemala and others to block consensus. A final decision was ultimately postponed. 

Another proposal, with guidelines on a comprehensive ban or restrictions on tobacco advertising, was also long debated, with negotiators nearly running out of time to pass it. The Philippine delegation objected to it until the very last minute.

“This was a huge delegation from the Philippines. It was bigger than China, bigger than India,” Mackay said. “It was stacked with pro-industry people.” They went into meetings in force, she said, and often sat in the front seats.

“They would tend, I think, to be quite intimidating to other delegates.”

She believes the tobacco industry wishes to “undermine the treaty and make it as least effective as it can possibly be.” 

Before the conference, Mendoza, the Philippine government official, opposed a proposal that he feared could ultimately lead to countries banning sales of tobacco and nicotine products to people born after a certain year. He said such “very strict measures” could eventually “lead to sustained economic losses from the tobacco sector in the Philippines.” Tobacco companies have vigorously fought cigarette generational bans.

The Philippine government did not respond to written questions. 

Philippines delegate Rodante Marcoleta, a legislator who pushed for loosening restrictions for heated tobacco and vapes, told The Examination at the conference that the country’s national law is based on policies that make the state responsible for balancing health concerns with the interests of tobacco farmers and the businesses catering to them. He added that tobacco taxes pay for health programs. 

Fallout in the Philippines

The Examination obtained the documents showing officials’ positions through a public records request to the Philippines’ Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, which is investigating the delegation’s behavior at the conference. 

Sen. Pia Cayetano, who heads the committee, strongly criticized the delegation for its support of the tobacco industry in a parliamentary speech the week after the conference ended. 

“It is a great embarrassment to me, your honor, that the representatives for us, for the Philippines, stood before a global audience of mostly health advocates, and they advocated for the tobacco industry, Mr. President,” Cayetano said.

The committee began its investigation after a coalition of nonprofits awarded the Philippine delegation a “Dirty Ashtray” award for the alleged use of “tobacco industry tactics of obstinate dispute and delay.”

The committee has a draft report about its inquiry, but a representative initially told The Examination that the timeline for publishing it was “indefinite” due to the Senate being preoccupied with budget discussions. Those discussions are now over, but the committee didn’t respond to inquiries about the status of the report. 

During negotiations at the conference in Panama, an official from the Philippine Department of Health told The Examination that they hoped the push by the Department of Trade and Industry to make the country a manufacturing hub for heated tobacco would not materialize. At the time, tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) was preparing to unveil a $150 million heated tobacco product factory in the Philippines, which has since opened.

The popularity of heated tobacco is increasing rapidly, with the industry arguing it is less risky than traditional cigarettes. Philip Morris International’s IQOS heated tobacco brand now generates more revenue than its Marlboro cigarettes. But most published research about heated tobacco and its potential harms is industry funded. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says IQOS is “not safe” and the company is barred from saying or implying that the FDA deems the products safe for consumers.

Decades of tobacco industry influence

The Philippines is a major force in the global tobacco trade. It both grows the leaf and produces cigarettes for export: more than 42 billion projected for this year. Key politicians have close ties to the tobacco industry. The son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. was made vice governor and then governor of the tobacco-growing province of Ilocos Norte during his father’s rule in the early 1980s. 

The Marcos family was exiled to Hawaii by the People Power Revolution in 1986, but Marcos Jr. returned after his father’s death in 1989 and relaunched his political career as a congressional representative from Ilocos Norte, part of a region that produces two-thirds of the country’s tobacco crop.

Shortly after Marcos Jr.’s inauguration in 2022, he allowed a controversial bill to become law that loosened restrictions for heated tobacco and vapes, including reducing the access age from 21 to 18. It was hailed by Philip Morris International as one of the year’s “encouraging international developments.” 

“Shocking things are happening,” said Mary Assunta, a senior policy adviser at the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance, who believes the president and first lady have done much to unravel two decades of public health work in the country. 

Two months after the tobacco treaty negotiations in Panama, the chief executive of Philip Morris International inaugurated the new heated tobacco factory in the Philippines’ Batangas province.

Dignitaries at the event included first lady Louise “Liza” Araneta-Marcos, agriculture secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr. and undersecretary Deogracias Victor B. Savellano. Araneta-Marcos is pictured alongside Jacek Olczak, the chief executive of Philip Morris International, in official photos.

Olczak was also hosted by the president and first lady at a formal luncheon at Malacañang Palace in November 2022 — the first time a corporate CEO has received an official reception at the president’s residence, according to VeraFiles.

PMFTC, the Philippines affiliate of Philip Morris International, has partnered with a project of Araneta-Marcos’ that boosts her public image, including events to provide free medical care and other services to residents of low-income communities. 

Documents show that Savellano, who supervised the country’s National Tobacco Administration, was heavily involved in shaping the Philippines’ position at the Panama conference. 

He opposed proposed guidelines to ban tobacco advertising because it could hurt tobacco farmers and the agricultural sector. In a position paper approved by Savellano, the Philippine Department of Agriculture argued the tobacco sector “could face severe economic challenges due to reduced demand stemming from extreme advertising restrictions.”

Savellano, who died in January, was from the Ilocos region. In 2010 the chairman of PMFTC — and Philip Morris International’s business partner — was a “principal sponsor” of his daughter’s wedding, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism reported. He was charged twice in connection with the alleged misuse of tobacco tax funds earmarked for his province, according to local media reports. One of the cases led to the conviction of former president Joseph Estrada. It is unclear how the charges against Savellano were resolved.

Philip Morris International declined to respond to questions.

Tobacco companies join forces in lobbying across borders

Philip Morris International, whose employees were in Panama in February 2024, has a history of lobbying the tobacco control conference negotiations. Reuters has reported that company executive Chris Koddermann led a lobbying campaign at the 2014 conference in Moscow. 

Koddermann congratulated a PMI team that traveled to Moscow for achieving “nearly all of our objectives” and described “avoiding the adoption of guidelines on testing and reporting” on tobacco products as a “great outcome.”

A 2023 email shows Koddermann was still active and working to influence last year’s conference — this time on behalf of a new client, British American Tobacco. 

He was copied on a message that a British American Tobacco consultant emailed to the Paraguayan mission to the United Nations, saying they both represented the company and requesting a meeting about the conference, documents obtained through a public records request in collaboration with the Paraguayan news outlet El Surti show. Paraguay’s delegation later declined to meet with the company’s representatives.

Documents leaked to Reuters also reveal Philip Morris International has sought to move power away from ministries of health toward other departments, such as commerce and agriculture.

The major tobacco companies, which are otherwise fiercely competitive, have previously joined forces to lobby conference delegations. Newly released court documents involving Juul reveal that Big Tobacco companies had set up a working group for previous treaty negotiations. Koddermann said that industry coordination had been “pivotal in preventing the adoption of extreme measures at previous COPs.” Juul, the U.S. electronic-cigarette maker, tried to join the group after it hired Koddermann in 2019 to lead its lobbying efforts.

Koddermann didn’t respond to interview requests or written questions. A Juul spokeswoman said the company couldn’t comment on circumstances related to documents and discussions that took place more than five years ago, adding that in 2019, the company embarked on a reset and put in place new leadership. 

A British American Tobacco spokesperson said in an email that it partners with third parties that could support the company’s “vision to Build a Smokeless World” — a concept it uses to promote newer nicotine products it argues help smokers quit cigarettes.

“We know regulations are best developed when there is transparent input from, and consideration of the views of, all interested and informed stakeholders,” the spokesperson said. 

The spokesperson said the tobacco control treaty does not exclude the industry from the development of regulations and doesn’t ban engagement with governments.

The treaty requires governments to protect their tobacco control policies from the interests of the tobacco industry. Its guidelines recommend that governments interact with the industry only when strictly necessary to regulate it — always “transparently” and in public whenever possible.

Philip Morris International made no secret of its attempts to influence the Panama conference. Gregoire Verdeaux, the company’s top lobbyist at the time, told The Guardian that he would be “on site” and would “gladly” have a discussion with anyone. 

The Examination confirmed that PMI employees, including Verdeaux, stayed at the five-star Bristol Hotel in Panama City during the negotiations. Verdeaux did not respond to requests for an interview. He left the company last year. 

Nadim Qusous, a lobbyist from Philip Morris International in Jordan, was also spotted in Panama City by a member of an advocacy group who attended as an observer to the negotiations. 

Jordan, which has the highest smoking rate among men globally, according to a recent survey, joined the Philippines in blocking consensus on the original proposal for a group of health experts to help develop guidelines for regulating contents of tobacco products.

The Examination’s reporters witnessed the head of the Jordanian delegation, Jumana Kilany, who was an employee at the trade ministry, arguing with the country’s two other delegates outside their hotel shortly after she read out the statement opposing the health expert approach. 

“We know that the Ministry of Health officially requested that the position of Jordan would support the expert group,” said Ahmad Abbadi, regional coordinator for the eastern Mediterranean region for Global Alliance for Tobacco Control. “Unfortunately a different statement was read.”

A former Jordanian trade minister, Yarub Qudah, was working as a consultant for PMI until at least the end of December 2023, covering the period the Jordanian government was formulating its position for the conference. He has since been reappointed as trade minister. 

The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Supply would not say on what date Qudah ended his PMI consultancy. Stock market filings show he stepped down from another corporate job in September 2024, on the same day he was reappointed as minister. 

In an email, a representative of the ministry said that Qudah “did not attend or participate” in the Panama conference and that the head of the country’s delegation did not meet or have discussions with any tobacco representatives during the conference.

The representative also said the ministry does not regulate the tobacco industry. The ministry does, however, participate in a government committee responsible for tobacco products standards and technical regulations, including product health warnings, according to Abbadi.

The ministry’s email said Jordan’s official position was to support the working group because it allows “any country to participate in the dialogues and discussions since every country has its own concerns on both the economic and social impact.” The representative accused a member of the delegation of speaking “differently” to reflect “his own position and opinion,” saying that is what led to the argument at the hotel.

The Jordanian Ministry of Health did not respond to requests for comment. 

In a press briefing midway through the Panama conference, the World Health Organization’s Rüdiger Krech said that the goal of the tobacco industry there was to “slow down” the negotiations.

“No decisions,” he said. “That’s what I would want if I was Philip Morris. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing.”

The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance has received support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which also provides financial support to The Examination. The Examination operates independently and is solely responsible for its content.

Jason McLure, at The Examination, and Josué Congo, from El Surti, contributed to this story.