Conclusion
NEARLY half of the adult Filipino population consumes alcoholic drinks, advocates of higher taxes on “sin” products disclosed.
While men account for 70 percent of alcohol consumed, alcohol consumption by females is also high with almost 30 percent, Dr. Maricar Limpin of the Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) said.
Limpin said in a forum on alcohol- harm reduction in late-August that this consumption of alcoholic drinks is on a “regular” basis.
She added that a big percentage of annual deaths is attributable to alcohol, with special emphasis on vehicular accidents currently ranking as the fifth cause of death among Filipinos.
BAC
ACCORDING to toxicologist Lynn Panganiban of the University of the Philippines Poison Center, a 300-milliliter bottle of beer at 0.36 BAC, or blood alcohol content, is enough to impair the driving skills of a 154-pound man. BAC refers to the amount of alcohol for every 100 ml of blood, Panganiban explained.
Three times that number can lead to the deterioration in thinking, not to mention slowed reflexes, she said. Different types of alcohol yield different BAC levels because of their alcoholic content, according to Panganiban.
A 300 ml of a local beer with 5-percent alcohol content taken by a 154-pound male will have the same 0.36 BAC levels if he takes a 30-ml shot of hard liquor at 50-percent alcohol or a 120-ml glass of wine with a 12-percent alcohol content, Panganiban said.
Types
THERE are three basic types of alcoholic drinks, Panganiban said.
Beer, made from fermented grains, has an alcohol content of 3 percent to 6 percent.
Wine, made from fermented fruits, has an alcohol content of 11 percent to 14 percent.
Some wine drinks, such as wine coolers, have fruit juice and sugar added, lowering alcohol content to between 4 percent and 7 percent, Panganiban explained. Fortified wines, such as port, have alcohol added, bringing alcohol content to between 18 percent and 20 percent, she added.
Spirits are made by distilling a fermented product to yield a drink that usually contains 40-percent to 50-percent alcohol. The alcohol content in a spirit is sometimes indicated by degrees of proof.
Panganiban qualifies, however, that not all drinkers are the same.
“Some will get drunk faster than another,”she said. “You see, a BAC level does not just depend on the number of bottles consumed.”
According to her, BAC also takes into account a person’s weight, built, gender, the time when alcohol is being consumed and even how much food was eaten.
Low
ECONOMIST Jo Ann L. Diosana pointed to the excise tax—still low, she said—on alcohol products as reason for the increase in consumption.
Diosana, senior economist of nonprofit group Action for Economic Reforms (AER), noted that companies were able to adjust pricing and products with the enactment of Republic Act (RA) 9334 in 2005 and RA 10351, or the sin-tax reform law, in 2013.
“Companies would still depend on demand,” she said. “They wouldn’t produce without demand.”
Diosana explained “if the market shrunk” after 2013, then companies “will adjust accordingly because that [excise tax] is added cost to them.”
Likewise, an increase in consumer’s purchasing power also abetted the adjustment of the market.
“This means that the drop in consumption for 2013 is not enough,” Diosana said. “It [drop in alcohol consumption] has to be sustained.”
Ads
ANOTHER factor that softened the impact of excise tax on alchohol products is advertising.
Citing a study by Henry Saffer of Kean University, Limpin said “alcohol advertising was significantly related to vehicle fatalities.”
Analyzing the relationship between fatality rates and alcohol advertising in the top 75 media markets, Saffer strongly recommended a total ban on alcohol advertising to reduce alcohol-related risks.
“Total ban can be expected to save several thousand lives per year,” Limpin said, citing Saffer.
The Philippines has quite a number of alcohol-control measures, according to Limpin. But these are not strictly implemented against tobacco-related and other non-communicable diseases,
she added.
Success
NONETHELESS, the National Tax Research Center (NTRC) has noted the sin-tax reform law has successfully achieved its objective of reducing alcohol consumption.
According to the NTRC in 2014, this was “indicated by the general decreases in the volume of removals of sin products.”
The NTRC said the increase in the volume of removals in 2013 resulted to 161.7 percent, or a P6.8-billion, increase in collection over the P4.2-billion collection in 2012.
“The significant increase could also be attributed to the shift in the excise-tax structure from specific tax to compound,” the NTRC said in its assessment of RA 10351.
According to government, the total excise-tax collections from fermented liquor in 2015 reached P28.26 billion, higher by 14 percent, or P3.52 billion, from that of 2014 with P24.74 billion.
Total excise-tax collections from distilled spirits in 2015 reached P13.51 billion, increasing by 7 percent, or P99 million, from the P12.52 billion recorded in 2014.
Total excise-tax collections from wines in 2015 registered at P5 million, a 25-percent, or P1-million,
increase from the P4 million recorded in 2014.
The NTRC said the law was successful in meeting its objective of generating additional revenue earmarked for the universal health care program of the government.
Little
BUT for AER, the 4-percent increase on the excise tax on alcohol products beginning January 1, 2018 and onward is miniscule.
“[The annual increase] is very little,”Diosana said. “The price increase can easily be reached by consumers in line with the increase in income, especially when the economy gets better.”
According to Diosana, an improvement in the performance of the Philippine economy leads to higher income.
Hence, the 4-percent increase “wouldn’t be enough anymore.”
“We have to increase the taxes further so that prices will increase further more than the increase in income,” Diosana said. She noted that the country’s surveillance on alcohol is not very well established yet. “We still need to do a lot in terms of regulation of alcohol.”
With additional reporting by Dennis D. Estopace
Image credits: Alysa Salen