Cola Warning?

A friend of mine who must remain unnamed for obvious reasons was on the phone the other week, trying to persuade me to forget my stance about Coca Cola. Let´s see, what was I saying?

Three things essentially: first, for Coca Cola Bottlers Philippines, Inc. to maybe change their current ad campaign encouraging people to drink "Coca Cola Araw-Araw"; second, fix that aluminum bottle cap in their Litro which has cut fingers of unwary Coke drinkers for decades now (why it can´t be plastic like their other big bottles I cannot imagine) and third, discouraging all beverage distributors (not only Coke, but all, mind you) from giving away chillers and ice boxes to their retailers in the interest of helping the crusade against global warming.

I appreciate my friend´s position since Coke plays a big part of his livelihood but in the balance of public service, one person or even all the people and families served by Coke are far outweighed by the health of all cola drinkers. Recall how I said they could simply change their catch phrase to something else instead of "Mag Coke Araw-Araw."

Come to think of it, we should be doing something more than that. The health risks of drinking too much cola and the damage it wreaks on the nutrition of kids especially calls for more drastic measures like those imposed on the cigarette industry. What I mean is our lawmakers should seriously consider including carbonated drinks (not only Coke, mind you, but all similar cola drinks) in the list of items which carry a label warning against the health risks of drinking them every day. This should also include an eventual phase out of billboard and other media advertising just like what they did for the cigarette industry.

My friend shouldn´t worry about losing the millions he´s made distributing cola drinks. The cigarette industry survived and I believe is even expanding despite the health warnings on all cigarette products and the advertising ban. Carbonated drinks should do fine, even if such measures were imposed against the industry.

Not the least, please don´t consider this a personal affront to our friendship. I already stressed as much to you previously, but you seem to want to impress on me how bad it would be for you if I wrote similar columns against your product in the future. I don´t believe that´s true, and I would like to prove it to you. So, here is this rejoinder to your phone call.

Remember, we in media are in the service of our readers and if there is something we believe which places their health or lives at risk, it would always be their interests which comes first before the vested interests of a few, no matter how long we´ve been friends and the journeys we´ve been through together.

Sacrifice is the essence of public service, amigo, and once you´ve learned to practice this in your business and profession, you would feel a lot better even when you perceive your friends are turning their backs against you.

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