There are 9.5 million smokers from 2021 to 2023, according to Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, citing data from a survey conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI).
In a joint Senate panel hearing of the Committee on Ways and Means joint with Trade, Commerce, and Entrepreneurship, Gatchalian explained that this is because of the decrease in never-smokers.
"Una, tumataas yung never smokers as our population goes up the incidents of never smoking goes up; you have new non-smokers. But bumaba siya noong 2023 so we have 9.5 million new smokers (As our population increases, the number of never smokers also rises which creates new non-smokers. However, this number decreased in 2023, resulting in 9.5 million new smokers)," he said.
"Out of that 9.5 million smokers, 6.4 million are smoking manufactured cigarettes; 1.5 million are smoking electronic cigarettes," he added.
He mentioned that based on the FNRI data, the country was previously winning the war against smoking prevalence. In 2015 it was at 18 percent and in 2021 it was reduced to 14 percent. During this time, the excise tax collection was also growing with its peak at P176 billion in 2021.
Gatchalian added that the smoking trend was good until 2021 together with government collection.
"A cause of concern triggered this hearing because we also saw a reversal after 2021...smoking prevalence increased by 14 to 18 percent in 2023. So in other words, we're back to square one," he said.
"This is a cause of concern because for many years, for almost six years we reduced smoke prevalence but in two years we're back to square one," he added.
Dr. Maria Encarnita Limpin, Director General of Action on Smoking & Health, Philippines (ASH, Phil.), said that this number is indeed a cause for alarm.
“More young being introduced into the smoking addiction means that there will be more people who will eventually get sick and die from tobacco-related diseases,” she said.
She recommended further taxation of sin products that include standard tobacco products and electronic smoking devices, explaining that effective taxation has been shown to effectively reduce tobacco use and reduction in tobacco use.
On the other hand, another matter Gatchalian pointed out, is that revenue collection has been dropping from the peak of P176 billion in 2021 to P134 billion in 2023. In relation to this, Gatchalian said that they've seen an uptick in illicit trade.
Gatchalian stressed, however, that while the sin tax aims to gain revenues, it is primarily a health measure because the country aims to reduce the incidents of smoking thereby creating a healthy constituency.
Yet he mentioned that e-cigarettes are not being taxed enough to the point that consumption is reduced.
"So one of our recommendations [is] to increase [taxes] on electronic cigarettes and make it unitary so that administrative-wise it's easier for the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to collect," he said.
"We should already sound the alarm because all the gains that we have managed to accomplish in the last five years were totally wiped out in the last two years," he added.
Meanwhile, Senator Grace Poe shared that there should be proper monitoring of the illegal trading of tobacco products aimed at discouraging smoking and gaining income as well. Poe asked Bureau of Customs officials the common source of smuggled tobacco products, and the usual brands of tobacco products that were smuggled into the country.
The senator was told that smuggled tobacco products usually originated from the so-called “Golden Triangle” countries, which are composed of Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. The smuggled products are then trans-shipped to China before entering the country. The majority of the apprehensions are usually branded cigarette products.