As the government closes in on the sale of illegal vape products, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) - Consumer Protection Group is set to release the supplemental guidelines for the mandatory certification of vape next month.

A public consultation was held to discuss the supplemental guidelines with stakeholders, wherein comments and recommendations will be collated and used to formulate the final Memorandum Circular, said DTI-CPG Assistant Secretary Amanda Nograles.

The supplemental guidelines are being prepared by the agency in time for the vape product registration and certification policy that will take effect in June this year.

Nograles told reporters in a media briefing on Friday, April 19 that by June, manufacturing and importation of vape products with no Philippine Standard (PS) marker from the DTI will be strictly prohibited.

"It's only supplemental because we already issued the Department Administrative Order (DAO) 22-06 ["New Technical Regulation Concerning the Mandatory Product Certification of Vaporized Nicotine and Non-Nicotine Products] in 2022," she noted.

"We need a supplement because the DAO 22-06 was released before the effectivity of the Vape Law. We need to align, in practice, the policy on certification. We need cooperation between the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Bureau of Customs (BOC), and DTI since the issues we're facing now are on smuggled [vapes], non-payment of excise taxes, and non-compliance to vape laws," she added.

From June 2024 to January 2025, the DTI will be allowing the remaining illegal vape products existing and circulating in the market to deplete their stocks. Ideally, by next year, the agency expects to eradicate non-compliant vapes entering and being sold in the country.

Nograles mentioned that DTI has written to the BOC, stating that beginning February, imported vape shipments without certificates of conditional release from the DTI can no longer be released.

Recipients of these certificates are allowed to transfer their products to their warehouses, but are subject to inspection for compliance by the DTI, particularly on rules on flavor descriptors, design and packages for vape products among others.

Both devices and consumables must be certified, according to Nograles.

The DTI is able to test vape devices, specifically checking their secondary batteries, battery chargers, its testing laboratory in Cavite. However, since there is no facility yet that can test consumables, the agency accepts testing done by third-party accredited laboratories.

Even though the imported vape products have been certified from their country of origin, there should still be an import commodity clearance (ICC) sticker per shipment.

As for disposables, Nograles said they are still studying an  appropriate policy, citing the difficulty in testing disposables since the consumable are integrated into the device.

There have been proposals from stakeholders to ban disposable vapes, which are being mulled over by the CPG, with a possibility to include regulation on disposables in the supplemental guidelines.

"The provision of the DTI is to test. If we can find a way to test it, there's an assurance of safety and quality, then no issue. But fundamentally, sampling is difficult," she noted.