Anti-mercury awareness has taken root in the Philippines. It wasn’t always like that, though. Before our anti-mercury campaign started in 2005, the dangers of mercury in health care wasn’t that well-known. All that changed after the first Southeast Asia Conference on Mercury was held in Manila in 2006. The conference brought the issue to light. The gathering was the tipping-point HCWH-Asia needed. Due to the convincing facts discussed, Philippine Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III pledged to author policies that mandate the phasing-out of mercury.The next year, Philippine Heart Center, together with St. Paul Hospital in Tuguegarao, the Manila Adventist Hospital, and San Juan De Dios Hospital started their own mercury phase-out programs. In August 11, 2008, Administrative Order 21 of the Department of Health was signed. It ordered the gradual phase-out of all mercury-containing devices in all Philippine hospitals by 2010.By 2009, more than 50 hospitals had...