The House Committees on Ways and Means and Heath has approved the measure which seeks to forbid the use of trans fatty acids in the country's food supply.

Camarines Sur 2nd District Rep. Luis Raymund "LRay" Villafuerte, Jr., welcomed the House panels' approval of House Bill No. 8093 or the proposed "An Act to Protect Filipinos From the Harmful Effects of Trans-Fatty Acids and for Other Purposes."

“Trans-fatty acids or TFAs have no health benefits. Based on the pronouncements of the World Health Organization (WHO), eliminating TFA from our diet is one of the simplest public health interventions to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and improve nutritional quality of our food,” Villafuerte said in a press statement on Sunday, Feb. 20.

Villafuerte wrote the bill in response to the WHO’s goal of eliminating the use of TFAs in food globally by 2023 as a way to minimize the risk coronary heart disease and other non-communicable diseases.

Villafuerte, citing the WHO, put forward that high TFA intake increases the coronary heart disease morbidity by 21 percent and mortality risk by 28 percent.

The two House committees specifically approved sections pertaining to tax provisions, and those pertaining to the regulation of food products.

Aside from the elimination of TFAs from the national food supply, two provisions from the bill included to facilitate the removal of TFAs were approved, namely: one section exempting laboratory materials used in testing for TFAs from taxation and duties; and another section stating that additional requirements would be added to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) certificate of product registration (CPR) within two years of the bill's enactment.