DOH-7 rejoices over sin tax approval

CEBU, Philippines - The Department of Health is among the many groups that celebrated the approval of the Sin Tax Bill in the senate last Tuesday after 15 years since it was first proposed.

Senate Bill 3299, which increases the taxes on tobacco and alcohol, is getting now closer to becoming a law.  Dr. Juditha Tawatao, DOH-7 officer-in-charge of the local health support division, said that they are happy of the approval of the bill in the senate although it has to pass through the bicameral committee.

She said that they have been looking forward for the approval of the bill to help mitigate the increasing number of smokers in the country.

Tawatao said that they do not have the exact numbers for the whole province yet to determine if there has been a significant increase lately since their counterparts in the municipalities and cities are the ones making surveys and programs to determine the tobacco users in their respective areas.

Regardless, Tawatao said that with the Sin tax bill nearing its approval as a law, they are hoping to lessen the tobacco users, specifically the youth, women and those coming from the low income margin, which are the main target of the tobacco companies.

She said that they still wish to reach out to them and strengthen the information dissemination, specifically on the ill-effects of prolonged tobacco use.

The Sin tax bill has been fully supported by the Aquino administration due to the increase of revenues it will bring.  Hand-packed cigarettes will be P12 per pack by Jan 1, 2013 and will increase P3 every succeeding year. This goes as well for the machine-packed cigarettes that are levied a tax of less than P7.65 this year. For those levied with more than P7.65 but less than P12, a pack would be at P16 by the start of 2013 while those levied a tax of more than P12 would already be P20 per pack.

This means an increase in revenues for the government by P39.5B on 2013, increasing to P45.7B the following year and P52.3B consequently. By 2016, an additional P57.7B of revenue will be brought about by the bill and will climb up to P64.4B in the following year.

Further, Tawatao said that with the Sin Tax bill, they are hoping that more local government units would be encouraged to submit and implement a smoke free ordinance.

Currently, only Negros Oriental is close to implementing in the whole province a smoke free ordinance. Tawatao said that Cebu, the city in particular, is one of the areas where they have had a hard time promoting the smoke free environment. But she explained that Cebu city already has the ordinance though, it would just need strict implementation.  — (FREEMAN)