[Intl-tobacco] Tobacco taxes eyed for anti smoking ads in the Philippines

[robert.weissman@essentialinformation.org]

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Saturday Jun. 05, 2004, Philippines
Philippine Daily Inquirer
www.inq7.net <http://www.inq7.net/>
June 5, 2004


Tobacco taxes eyed
for anti-smoking ads
Posted: 11:16 AM (Manila Time) | Jun. 05, 2004
By Blanche S. Rivera
Inquirer News Service

RIDING on the momentum of the tobacco control law enacted last year,
anti-smoking advocates would push next for the allocation of tobacco taxes
to fund a government campaign to counter the advertisements of tobacco
companies.

Sen. Juan Flavier, author of Republic Act 9211 or the Tobacco Control Act,
would file a bill establishing a national health promotions institute using
a portion of the taxes from the tobacco industry when the 13th Congress
opens next month.

Flavier's legislative officer Ramon Navarra said yesterday the national
health promotions office would follow the model of the Thai Health
Foundation in Thailand and the Victorian Health Foundation in Australia,
which conduct advertisements against tobacco use and sponsor activities that
lost support from tobacco companies.

The proposed foundation in the Philippines would get five percent or about
P1 billion in funding annually from tobacco industry taxes.

Navarra also said that anti-tobacco advocates in the House of
Representatives were also keen on filing a bill that would impose higher
taxes on tobacco companies, which currently remit 25 percent of their
revenues in excise tax.

The heavy taxation is projected to raise the p! rices of cigarettes by five
percent every year and discourage buyers, especially the poor, from smoking,
Navarra said.

"The No. 1 target is the poor because they have few access to information
and are most responsive to changes in the prices of commodities," Navarra
said in an interview before he presented the proposal to use tobacco taxes
for health promotion during the Health Research for Action National Forum at
the Manila Hotel on Friday.

The United Nations Human Development Report last year showed that an average
Filipino smoker consumes 1,563 sticks of cigarettes every year, draining 20
percent of the household income to maintain the habit.

A low-end cigarette is sold in the Philippines for around 25 pesos while
high-end cigarettes, including imported ones, fetch at least 40 pesos. The
prices of tobacco products here are among the lowest in the world, Navarra
said.

World Bank studies sh! owed that a 10-percent hike in taxes reduces
consumption by four percent in high-income countries and eight percent in
low and middle-income countries.

Navarra cited the United Kingdom, Denmark and Thailand as models of how
taxation could help in regulating the sale and consumption of tobacco
products in the said countries.

"In the Philippines, tax is just for a revenue measure and not a regulatory
mechanism unlike in other countries... If we cannot do increased taxes, we
can allocate the taxes for health promotions," Navarra said.

The tobacco industry posted almost a 4-billion-peso increase in excise taxes
remitted to the government in only four years. From 16.77 billion pesos in
1998, the taxes from tobacco ! companies rose to 20.06 billion pesos in
2002.

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