The Increase Of Tobacco Tax In Philippines
In May Filipinos elected Benigno Aquino as their president. Philip Morris, the manufacturer of Marlboro brand used the opportunity and sent out victory smoke signals because it was a very good reason for that. The president is a regular smoker and he said that he will not give up smoking.
It was said that even if Aquino will have a cigarette when he is under stress this is not going to stay in the way of the Philippines to join the global trend to discourage the smoking habit.
Health Secretary Enrique Ona is newly appointed and assured local anti-tobacco groups that the Health Department will be pushing for higher tobacco taxes. This is would raise hopes for tougher policy in a country which has 94 million people and has the lowest retail prices and taxes for tobacco products in Southeast Asia.
Maricar Limpin is the director of the Philippine chapter of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance (FCTCA), which is a global network of anti-tobacco activists. He said that they are banking on Secretary Ona’s proposal to increase tobacco products taxes by an equivalent of 4.50 Philippines pesos US$0.10 per stick. If the taxes for tobacco products will increase then the price for cigarettes will be higher and this will help reduce smoking especially among the poor and youth.
Taxes on tobacco products in the Philippines are at just 14 percent, in contrast to 70 percent Thailand, the highest in the region and 69% in the affluent city-state of Singapore and. While a packet of the original Marlboro, a product of Philip Morris International (PMI), sells for US$8.70 in Singapore and $2.50 in Thailand, the same packet of Marlboro Red goes for just 0.70 cents in the Philippines. This is cheaper than in Indonesia, where the same packet of 20 cigarettes sells for $1, or Laos, where it sells for $1.73.
Because of the cheap cigarette prices Philippines is considered to be in the list of the top 15 cigarette-consuming countries in the world. A report was made which estimated that 84 billion cigarettes are smoked every day in the country. In that list we can find also Indonesia and Vietnam. Indonesia has the highest number of tobacco smokers and especially cigarettes at some 63 million people - or 40% of Southeast Asia’s 125 million smokers.
Almost 28.3% of Filipinos over 15 years old - more than 24.6 million people are smoking, according to non-governmental groups like Health Justice. A Global Youth Tobacco Survey in 2007 related that children with the age of 13 are among the smokers and are contributing to the four million youth between 13 and 15 years addicted to cigarettes.
Deborah Sy, executive director of Health Justice said that the smoking prevalence is very high and it leads to many smoking related diseases and deaths. They estimate that every hour 10 Filipinos die from tobacco related illnesses.
The tobacco industry has started to target female smokers in the Philippines and youth i8n order to increase their sales. There were introduced new flavors to attract new smokers. Alampay describes it as a “feminine touch” that includes packets that offer mint-, chocolate- flavored cigarettes.
The tobacco industry said that they help people by offering them thousands of job in the north of the country, where tobacco is grown.
former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo inaugurated PMI’s $35.6 million factory in Batangas province in 2003, says the website of the Manila-based ABS-CBN News