A landmark law in 2012 raising excise taxes on cigarettes has helped around eight million Filipinos stop smoking as cigarette supply has gone down by more than a quarter.
The smoking prevalence rate – the ratio of smokers vis-à-vis population – dropped to 23 percent last year from 31 percent four years ago or before Republic Act 10351 was enacted, Philippine Star quoted government data.
With an estimated 100 million Filipinos, the latest prevalent rate translated to eight million people who have quit smoking, Antonio Miguel Dans, president of the Philippine Society of General Internal Medicine, reportedly said.
“We have gone a long way, but more needs to be done,” Dans was quoted as saying at a forum in Pasig City. “We estimate around two million more to stop once the unilateral bracket takes effect next year,” he reportedly said in a separate interview.
From 2012 to 2015, the volume of tobacco supply in the market dropped by an average of 25.9 percent. The biggest drop was at 19.4 percent in 2014 from the previous year’s figure. Supply from 2012 to 2013 dropped 15.5 percent, said the news portal.
Supply last year was 9.1 percent higher than the previous year, however.
“This is due to the industry’s usual practice of front loading in anticipation of the 2016 increase in rates,” Johanna Hortine of the DOF’s fiscal policy and planning group reportedly said.
Another reason for the drop in the number of smokers was the “implementation of the Graphic Health Warnings Law and the provision of RA 8424 requiring manufacturers to affix excise tax stamps on tobacco products,” Hortine was quoted as saying by Philippine Star.
Under RA 10351, excise levies for tobacco and alcohol have been raised. The law also requires reducing to just one the tax bracket for cigarette products by 2017 from the current forum.
