The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) are exploring ways to strengthen their partnership with leading online shopping platforms Lazada, Tiktok and Shopee to eliminate the sale of illegal vape products in the Philippines.
The DTI said it is stepping up enforcement against illegal products, ensuring violators are held accountable by equipping its monitoring and enforcement teams with the necessary tools to remove them from the domestic market.
“Violators are becoming increasingly cunning, infiltrating the market with illegal vape products. We can combat their proliferation through a whole-of-nation approach by collaborating with other government agencies and the private sector,” DTI Secretary Alfredo Pascual said in a statement.
A meeting between the two agencies and representatives of online shopping platforms included a discussion on emerging trends in the illegal drug trade, emphasizing the infiltration of addictive substances like psilocybin and cannabis into various products including vape liquids.
PDEA representatives noted the importance of renewing memoranda of agreement with e-commerce platforms to address the present challenges.
Representatives from Lazada, Shopee and TikTok expressed their commitment to collaborating with DTI and PDEA in combatting the sale of illegal substances on their platforms.
PDEA proposed renewing and updating their agreement with online platforms to address the growing threat of illegal substances online. This will allow for better detection and removal of illegal products.
Both the PDEA and the DTI are actively exploring further collaboration and joint operations, building on the DTI’s existing efforts where they teamed up with various law enforcement agencies like the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Philippine National Police (PNP), and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to strengthen enforcement of vape regulations.
The DTI recently signed a memorandum of agreement with the NBI to leverage their investigative and technical expertise for improved consumer protection.
