DOH: Higher sin taxes won’t intensify cigarette smuggling

MANILA, Philippines - An official of the Department of Health (DOH) yesterday debunked claims that higher sin taxes would intensify cigarette smuggling in the country, saying this is just a diversionary tactic of legislators opposing the measure.

“It’s a ‘red herring’ issue. Basically, smuggling has been an old diversionary issue used by anti-sin tax legislators. Why are they bringing it up now? The approval of a meaningful sin tax bill is inevitable – 16 long years. There is nothing more powerful than a law whose time has come,” said Anthony Leachon, a consultant for DOH’s Non-Communicable Diseases.

Earlier, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile had warned that smuggled cigarettes would flood the local market if the prices of tobacco products would be raised too much.

Leachon said he does not believe that more cigarettes would be sneaked into the country just because of the sin tax.

He said other countries also imposed higher tobacco levy but did not experience heightened cigarette smuggling.

“I don’t believe that. Our tobacco prices, even with the imposition of sin tax, will still be among the lowest in Southeast Asia. In fact, we are the source of smuggled tobacco in Thailand,” he claimed, citing reports presented by the Bureau of Internal Revenues (BIR) during a Senate hearing on the sin tax reform bill.

The DOH official emphasized that more lives would be saved if more Filipinos would quit smoking.