By Chino S. Leyco The tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) is hopeful its “heat-not-burn” tobacco products will be classified separately from the conventional cigarettes in the Philippines. Anna Bodi, PMI global communication manager, said that heated tobacco, like the IQOS, is labelled separately from combustable tobacco products in some markets including the United Kingdom, Hungary, Italy, Poland, among others. While IQOS is not yet being marketed in the Philippines by PMI’s local unit PMFTC, Inc., the company vowed that it will soon bring the heated tobacco products to the country, which they say is a better alternative to cigarettes consumed by Filipino smokers. Despite the absence of regulatory guidelines in the Philipines, IQOS is now being imported and sold online in the Philippines. Since its introduction, the smokeless tobacco device has gained a growing acceptance among the 15.9 million smoking Filipinos. Amid concerns about the health risks poised by smoking, PMI decided to switch gears by investing over $6 billion in science-based research, products development, and manufacturing hubs to come up with smoke-free cigarettes. After 11 years of research and development, PMI has come up with four heated tobacco and non-tobacco products designed to significantly reduce or eliminate the harmful toxins found in combustable cigarettes. One the new low-risk tobacco products that will soon arrive in the Philippine market is the IQOS, which features low heating—not burning — tobacco, therefore creating a nicotine-containing vapor with significantly fewer harmful toxicants compared with cigarette smoke. Emilija Veljkovic, PMI scientific and medical affairs manager, explained that nicotine, while addictive and not risk free, is not the primary cause of smoking-related diseases contrary to what many people believe. “When a cigarettes is lit, the burning of tobacco and other materials produces thousands of chemicals, many of which are widely recognized as being associated with the development of smoking-related diseases,” said Veljkovic, who is also a molecular biologist. Bodi, meanwhile, clarified that IQOS is not for adult who have never smoked or who have quit tobacco and nicotine use, nor an alternative to quitting.