P20 excise on cigarettes saved lives of 70,000 — doctors

The additional P20 excise levied on cigarettes since 2012 has prevented some 70,000 Filipinos from dying from smoking-related diseases, a group of doctors supporting a measure imposing a new round of “sin tax” increases told the Senate on Monday.

Dr. Tony Leachon, of Sin Tax Coalition, said the enactment of Republic Act No. 10351, or the Sin Tax Reform Law, resulted in the decrease of about four million smokers in the country as it made cigarettes more expensive.

“The health benefit is the greatest in the price-sensitive population, including the poor, the rural folk, the very young and the very old,” Leachon said at the Senate hearing presided over by Sen. Sonny Angara.

Fewer patients

Dr. Antonio Miguel Dans, of the Philippine General Hospital, said they also noticed a significant decline in the number of patients suffering from stroke, heart ailments, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases, which are all related to smoking.

Sen. Manny Pacquiao, one of three senators who filed a bill seeking a tax increase on tobacco, reiterated the urgency to pass the measure after Congress recently approved the Universal Health Care Law.

“We cannot impose new taxes on utilities and basic goods because the people are already burdened by taxes. Where will the government source the needed funds? I hope you understand my position,” Pacquiao said.

But Carmen Herce, a member of the Philippine Tobacco Institute, warned that mandating higher taxes on cigarette would only worsen tobacco smuggling, which, in turn, might lead to unintended losses in government revenues.

Citing the experience of Singapore, Herce said that raising sin taxes would force smokers to buy cheaper brand of cigarettes, which are usually sneaked into the country by smugglers. —Marlon Ramos