In a recent meeting of the World Health Organization in Manila, WHO Director General Margaret Chan accused the big tobacco firms of using lawsuits and other bullying tactics to try and subvert national laws and international conventions aimed at curbing smoking and cigarette sales.
“It is horrific to think that an industry known for its dirty tricks and dirty laundry could be allowed to trump what is clearly in the public’s best interests,” Chan said.
She cited legal actions by the tobacco industry against anti-smoking measures in Australia and Uruguay, saying these were “scare tactics” intended to frighten other countries from following suit.
“It is hard for any country to bear the financial burden of this kind of litigation, but most especially so for small countries,” she said.
“Big tobacco can afford to hire the best lawyers and PR firms that money can buy. Big money can speak louder than any moral, ethical or public health argument and can trample even the most damning scientific evidence,” she added.
Tobacco firms have questioned before the courts the Department of Health’s Administrative Order 2010-2013, which requires graphic health information on all tobacco packages as a means of informing the public of the hazardous effects of smoking to health, and counter the aggressive marketing strategies promoting smoking.
The government also suffered a temporary legal setback in its anti-smoking campaign when the Mandaluyong City Regional Trial Court Branch 213 on Wednesday issued a writ of preliminary injunction preventing the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority from implementing its smoking ban on open areas not covered by the definition of public places in Republic Act 9211, or the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003.
One way the government can gain back legal ground, though, is through enacting more legislation, specifically those measures imposing higher sin taxes.
Health groups have been urging the Aquino administration and Congress to work together to help enact the long-pending measures that seek to restructure the excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol products.
Chan said increasing tobacco taxes and prices are the most effective measures to cut smoking and they bring significant revenue to governments—and the same is true for alcohol.
Under Republic Act 9334, existing local taxes on cigarettes range from P2.47 for low-priced brands to P27.16 per pack for premium brands, placing the Philippines among the countries selling the cheapest cigarettes in Asia.
Our country has the highest number of smokers among Asean members. Over a third of our 90-million population are smokers.
According to the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, we also have one of the highest percentages of young smokers among Asian countries. About 30 percent of adolescents in the country’s urban areas smoke. Of these, more than 70 percent started smoking between ages 13 and 15.
It is estimated that one Filipino dies from a tobacco-related death every 10 seconds, making it an alarming public-health crisis. Seven out of the 10 primary causes of death in the country—stroke, cancer, heart attacks, chronic lower respiratory disease, pneumonia and diseases that occur around childbirth—are tobacco-related diseases.
A World Bank study said a 10-percent increase in taxes on tobacco products would lead to a 4-percent to 8-percent decrease in consumption.
If this is true, imagine how many thousands of lives could be saved if, for instance, the bills of Batanes Rep. Henedina Abad and Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. pushing for an increase in the prices of cigarette by as much as 83 percent were to be enacted into law.
The two bills are just among seven sin-tax reform measures pending in Congress, which the Department of Finance estimates could bring in an additional P30 billion to P40 billion in revenues per year.
The government needs the money. It can’t afford not to restructure excise taxes on tobacco. It also can’t afford to stand idle as its citizens die prematurely because of cigarette smoking. Raising taxes has never been this morally and economically defensible.
