DOH to Senate: Consider Sin Tax as a ‘health bill’

by Janine Oro

Department of Health (DOH) urged the Senate last week to consider Sin Tax Bill as a ‘health bill’, as it could contribute to the reduction of deaths caused by tobacco consumption.

DOH Undersecretary Ted Herbosa said in a statement that the pending bill, which will impose excise tax on cigarette and liquor, is also “anti-cancer”.

“By taxing tobacco, we can generate revenue for universal health care. At the same time, by increasing the price of tobacco to a point where the youth cannot afford it, we are preventing young people from taking up this deadly habit,” Herbosa said. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, tobacco products usually contain 93 carcinogens or cancer-causing ingredients, making lung cancer the most common disease that heavy smokers acquire.

The Philippine Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) show that the Philippines topped the list of Southeast Asian countries with the highest number of smokers (17.3 million) and ranked second as to having the lowest cigarette prices in the region. The survey also showed that a Filipino smoker could puff an average number of 1, 073 cigarette sticks in a year and 10 Filipino smokers succumb to death every hour due to smoking-related complications.

“We expect the deaths from cancers to increase. If we do not act now, this could become a full blown epidemic of early death for our workforce,” Herbosa added. DOH estimate that a 10-percent increase in tobacco taxes would reduce the number of smokers by two million by 2016. It was also projected that the passage of the bill would give way to a 20-percent decrease in smoking-related deaths. House Bill No. 5727 or widely known as the “Sin Tax Bill”, proposed by Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya, aim to restructure the excise tax on alcohol and tobacco products by adapting an excise tax system. The said bill was recently passed in the House and is pending to be passed in the Senate. “What we are asking our good Senators is to put the health of our people as the primary concern in approving this tax measure. It is just right and responsible to tax the tobacco industry considering the billions of pesos that our healthcare is forced to carry because of the disease burden from smoking,” Herbosa said.