Cancer Survivors Hopeful of Better Use of Sin Tax Collections Under Duterte

Anti-smoking group New Vois Association of the Philippines (NVAP) has expressed confidence that the use of the billions of pesos from sin tax revenues will improve under the Duterte administration.

NVAP President Emer Rojas hopes that President Rodrigo R. Duterte will make an announcement on a comprehensive plan to utilize the sin tax when he addresses Filipinos on his first State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) on Monday.

Rojas made the statement following a paper recently released by the World Bank recommending strategies in using excise tax from tobacco and alcohol to improve public health services.

Among those recommended by the World Bank include the need to expand the health aspect of the program which should involve monitoring health insurance coverage to ensure that the poor are aware of their entitlements to free insurance through the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth).

The report also advised of designing a health awareness campaign to improve public knowledge of the harmful effects of smoking and excess drinking and sustaining a broad coalition of civil society that will continue to engage and support the legislative process.

“We are hoping that President Rodrigo Duterte will include in his first SONA how the government will improve utilizing the gains of the sin tax to achieve better health outcomes for every Filipino. Besides the sin tax was a health measure in the first place so it is just right to use it for that purpose,” said Rojas, who is also a global cancer ambassador for the American Cancer Society.

“President Duterte has always been a health advocate and did a tremendous job in making Davao City smoke free when he was mayor. We are confident that he will do the same as president to protect the health of every Filipino,” he added.

Rojas said strengthening the health system is likely to reduce sickness and death from smoking as well as save government money that would have otherwise been used to pay the medical expenses of poor patients.

Considered a monumental success against a strong tobacco lobby in Congress, the sin tax was passed in 2012 after more than two decades of impasse.

Last year’s sin tax revenues hit PHP141.84 billion, up by a quarter from the previous year’s PHP112.81 billion record. As per Republic Act No. 10351, 85 percent of the revenues should go to PhilHealth while 15% is allocated to assist tobacco farmers.

A survey done by the Social Weather Stations in 2015 showed that the prevalence of smoking in the country dropped to 25% since the sin tax implementation in the beginning of 2013. It also tripled the budget of the Department of Health in the three years since it began. (PNA) SCS/PR/PJN