MANILA, Philippines — A civil society group said Monday that urging manufacturers to produce healthier products would be a better approach to excessive salt consumption.
Dr. Anthony Leachon, Sin Tax Coalition co-convenor, said that making salty products healthier for Filipinos was a better alternative to taxing them, especially for minimum wage workers who depend inexpensive but unhealthy food.
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"That’s the essence of our advocacy — for manufacturing [companies] to reformulate their contents to be healthier with less salt," he said.
This comes after Health Secretary Francisco Duque proposed a "sin tax" on salty foods because they "did the same for sugary foods."
A "sin tax" is a type of excise tax that is imposed on goods that are considered harmful to people and society to partly discourage consumption.
The government also imposes "sin taxes" on alcoholic and tobacco products.
READ: DOH wants salty foods, including daing, taxed
Health issue?
Rep. Janette Garin (Iloilo), who once headed the Department of Health herself, said Monday that the amendment of the ASIN law would be a better initiative if the department truly felt that excessive salt consumption was a health issue.
READ: Former Health secretary urges DOH to rethink salt tax
The ASIN Law requires salt manufacturers to iodize the salts they produce and distribute, among other stipulations. According to Garin, the law was enacted in 1995 to address the country's micronutrient deficit.
United Nations Interagency Task Force (UNIATF) data has shown that excessive consumption of salty food is one factor behind the influx of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and stroke, which DOH said were responsible for 68% of deaths in the country.
Furthermore, Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo said that an excess of salt in one’s diet is “directly correlated to hypertension, heart disease and kidney diseases.”
The World Health Organization's (WHO) recommended salt intake stands at about 5 grams per day, but according to UNIATF, Filipinos consume more than double that at 11 grams daily.
A joint news statement by WHO, DOH, UNIATF and the United Nations Development Programme on NCDs said that a salt intervention package could save an estimated 164,251 lives within a 15-year window.
However, Garin asserted that salt also afforded diets its own health benefits, saying “Salt, used moderately, aids our digestion and excretion."
Similarly, Leachon highlighted that the government must study the situation first, particularly its health implications. "These products can be less risky if not consumed in excess amounts,” he said.
Economic benefits
According to the joint statement, the country loses a total of P756.5 billion annually due to the aforementioned NCDs, good for 4.8% of the economy's GDP.
DOH said this figure was the sum of both direct costs of NCDs associated with treatment and the indirect costs arising from reduced productivity in the workplace, and the premature deaths among the workforce. They said that these ‘hidden’ costs of NCDs are nine times higher than their more visible counterparts.
"The salt reduction package has the best return on investment," DOH said in a statement. According to them, a salt-reduction package would only cost P5 billion to implement in the next 15 years and in return would yield P163.1 billion "due to increased productivity in the work force."
Such a package would include policy interventions like combating misleading marketing, front-of-package labelling on food and salt reduction in community eating spaces.
Anti-poor
Garin also stressed that while imposing such a task would invariably improve the health of Filipinos, it would also take a significant toll on the average household budget given that many families cannot afford refrigerators and rely on salt to preserve food.
“It’s anti-poor. It’s a relative risk compared to smoking (cigarettes), alcohol, and e-cigarettes. Salt is bad when taken in huge amounts,” Leachon said. He added that minimum wage earners can only afford cheap, unhealthy and salt-heavy foods like tuyo and daing.
Other groups have echoed the sentiment that taxing salty foods would be anti-poor.
“Consumption of salty products such as dried fish is not a choice of leisure, but of desperation, among food items with skyrocketing prices," Former Anakpawis lawmaker Ariel “Ka Ayik” said, calling the proposed tax a "hypocritic oath" on the part of the Health Secretary.