The President justified his order to the authorities to confiscate vaping devices, citing the Consumer Act of the Philippines (Republic Act 7394).

Following his directive to ban e-cigarettes and the importation of vaping products in the country, President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday stressed that there was no need to issue an executive order on the ban against the use of e-cigarettes in public.

In his speech in Maasim, Sarangani Province, the President noted that nicotine is already prohibited and there is a law regarding the use of nicotine, thus saying that he does not have to issue an executive order.

“If you use vaping in public there is nicotine and so without the other chemical combustion there, you are already violating the law in vaping because it contains nicotine,” said Duterte.

The President also slammed the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) — whose president, Domingo Cayosa, had said vape users arrested on account of the President’s order may question their apprehension before the courts.

Domingo said the only basis being used by authorities only covers conventional tobacco cigarettes, referring to Duterte’s 2017 executive order that banned smoking in public places.

“Do not listen to those lawyers,” Duterte, a former government prosecutor said.

The President also justified his order to the authorities to confiscate vaping devices, citing the Consumer Act of the Philippines (Republic Act 7394).

“If the thing we are importing is prohibited by the place where it was made, then automatically it is also not good and it should be by operation of common sense,” Duterte said.

“If a thing is not legal there where it was made or manufactured then it cannot be legal here,” he added.