Sotto evokes tobacco ban in PH over proposed excise tax hike

Tobacco. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)

Why not just ban tobacco in the Philippines instead of imposing more taxes on it?

Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto III brought up the idea Monday night when Senator JV Ejercito proposed a new provision in the tax reform measure that would double the excise tax on tobacco from the present P30 per pack to P60.

The additional tax would be on top of the annual four percent tax increase being imposed on cigarettes.

Ejercito, chairman of the Senate committee on health, said doubling the tax on cigarettes would offset his proposal to lower the tax on sweetened beverages.

Senator Risa Hontiveros backed Ejercito’s proposal while Senator Grace Poe cited the position papers of Action for Economic Reforms and several other organization that “failure to increase sin tax this year will result in additional 200,000 more new smokers.”

But Sotto objected to Ejercito’s proposal.

“Unfortunately, there is no legislator from the North here right now. Perhaps that’s the reason that we have not spoken against this proposal,” he said.

Sotto lamented that: “It’s only this year that the unitary system for the tobacco taxes is being imposed. Hindi pa natin alam kung maganda ang kalalabasan o hindi… and here we are again taxing it.”

“Why don’t we file a bill banning tobacco in the in the Philippines kung ganun din lang di ba? Gawin na nating parang marijuana, bawal na. Di solved ne lahat yan.”

“I’d like to speak for these legislators in the North. Yung mga tobacco farmers right now dumudugo pa ng puso sa sin tax natin e. Naiiyak e… Heto na naman tayo. So I object Mr. President to the proposal of Senator JV,” the majority leader added.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon contradicted Sotto, saying the farmers from the North have been benefitting from the sin tax law that Congress passed in 2012.

Because of the law, Drilon said the four provinces from the North producing Virginia Tobacco get 15 percent of the tax being collected from cigarettes.

“In 2015, if I’m not mistaken, the four provinces  in the North— Abra, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos  Norte and La Union — got an extra P 7.5 billion as their share under RA 7171,” he pointed out.

Recognizing that his proposal needs further study, Ejercito did not push for voting as he only asked for a commitment that this would be included in the second package of the tax reform measure.                   /kga