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SCMP Reporter

One item has dominated the news in Manila lately, grabbing headlines even bigger than those given to the jailhouse wedding of movie star Robin Padilla.

  Padilla, while serving a 20-year sentence for brandishing a gun, has become a Muslim and changed his name to Abdul Aziz.

  His wedding, at the National Penitentiary's Camp Sampaguita, was the subject of much mirth in the newspapers, aghast at the actor's decision to convert and the 100 guests allowed at the ceremony, for which 10 cows were killed.

  Yet all this was nothing compared to the horror and indignation that greeted Health Secretary Carmencita Reodica's claim that one of the Filipino's staple foodstuffs might cause cancer.

  At stake is the future of the pan de sal, a humble bread roll, the country's version of the croissant, eaten at breakfast by almost every Filipino family until the scare.

   Since Ms Reodica's statement, sales have fallen dramatically.

  Writer and political analyst Kitch Ortega hinted at the potential size of the problem.

  'This is a food of the masses,' she said. 'One cannot ignore the influence on our lives of flour power.'   It is not the integrity of the pan de sal which is being questioned, but what the dough bakers use to make it. More to the point, it is the chemical dough-expander potassium bromate, which around 90 per cent of the Philippines' 10,000 bakeries use to increase the volume of bread they can produce.

  'It's a useful chemical because it means they can make more bread with less dough,' said Mr Ortega.

  But potassium bromate has been banned in most Western countries - and in Hong Kong and Taiwan - for years. Scientists know it can cause cancer in animals. The question is whether it can cause cancer in humans.

  In scenes of dilly-dallying reminiscent of that other great food rumpus, Britain's Mad Cow Disease scare, the Philippines' Department of Health originally said it could not, then said it might, then said it definitely could.

   Finally, Ms Reodica announced: 'Potassium bromate can cause cell tumours, renal tumours and follicular tumours.'   Senator Juan Flavier immediately called for a strict ban on the chemical. Wilson Go, president of WKG Food Tech International, said: 'We in the food industry are behind this ban. Only the big hotel bakeries in the Philippines, most of which are in Manila, produce bromate-free breads and bread products.'   Dr Quintin Kintanar of the Bureau of Food and Drugs said he had no doubt at all the chemical could cause cancer. He pointed to recent findings of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's committee on additives, which reported potassium bromate, used as a flour and dough improver 'has genotoxic and carcinogenic effects'.

   But later he appeared to go back on his words, claiming potassium bromate had been used in baking since the 1930s and not one single case of cancer from eating it had been reported.

  Exactly what the government is going to do about the scare is not yet clear. The Department of Health is recommending the phasing out of the chemical's use, but senators and health watchdogs say it should be banned immediately.

  'We are trying to do something, or perhaps planning to implement or impose a ban immediately on the use of potassium bromate in pan de sal,' Ms Reodica said.

  The Philippine Association of Flour Millers has warned that replacements for the chemical would be more expensive - pushing up the price of the country's favourite breakfast.



Flour power hit by cancer scare