Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – Some lawmakers are questioning the inclusion of a bill to regulate tobacco on their legislative agenda for 2013.

During a House plenary meeting on Thursday, Ignatius Mulyono, the chairman of the House's legislative body (Baleg), said that a tobacco bill would be one of 12 new pieces of legislation to be deliberated next year.

Ignatius announcement drew the ire of some lawmakers, who said that the rapid inclusion of the bill on the House's backlogged agenda may have been due to the Alliance of Indonesian Tobacco Farmers (AMTI), which is said to have links with the national cigarette producing giant PT Sampoerna.

"We suspect that the cigarette manufacturer has intentionally encouraged deliberations on the bill for its own benefit. It's unclear what the bill aims to regulate," lawmaker Sumarjati Arjoso of the Great Indonesian Movement (Gerindra) Party said.

She encouraged the House not to consider the bill. "If we aim to protect our tobacco farmers, we can include it in a bill on farming, which we will discuss later. However, if this [tobacco] bill is included for the sake of cigarette producers, it will make poor people poorer," Sumarjati said.

Ignatius said that the inclusion of the bill was backed members of every political party represented on the legislative body. "We didn't arbitrarily include it on the list. It's been a long process," he said. (lfr)