House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Marikina City 2nd district Rep. Miro Quimbo has raised the need for a unitary tax rate on vapes, which he says has become a "lifestyle product" among Filipinos.

This, after Quimbo led on Monday, Feb. 23 the conduct of a committee hearing on the rise of vaping in the Philippines and its potential health and fiscal implications. The panel discussion focused on the increasing prevalence of vape use among the youth and the role of excise taxation in addressing the public health challenge.

“Lumabas ka nga lang sa bahay, sa mall, sa parking lot, o sa labas ng mga schools diyan, makikita mo ang paglaganap ng vaping, lalo na sa mga kabataan (Just step outside the house, into the mall, the parking lot, or outside the schools, and you’ll see how widespread vaping has become, especially among the youth)," Quimbo said.

"Vaping has evolved into a lifestyle product, flavored, colorful, easily accessible, and aggressively targeted at younger consumers," noted the House tax panel chairman.

Citing national data from the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), Quimbo highlighted the alarming spike in nicotine product use among youth aged 10 to 19.

From 0.8 percent in 2015, rising to 3.2 percent in 2019, the number skyrocketed to 39.9 percent in 2023. In just four years, vaping among youth nicotine users increased more than tenfold. He said this eflected both an influx of new nicotine users and a shift from cigarette smoking to vape use. 

The Marikina lawmaker noted that excise taxes on sin products were guided by two key principles: to discourage consumption and to generate revenue for health programs. The committee’s hearing offered an opportunity to review data on vape consumption trends, tax collections, elasticity estimates, and projected healthcare costs.

Currently, vape products are under a two-tier tax system for salt nicotine and conventional freebase. The salt nicotine is taxed at P60.00 per ml and freebase is taxed at P6.95.

The committee is now pushing for a unitary tax rate, effectively removing the two-tier distinction between salt nicotine and conventional freebase that is supposedly prone to misdeclaration. This set-up supposedly makes tax administration more difficult.

This was supported during the meeting by the attending representatives of the Bureau of Customs (BOC), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), and (DOF).

Several bills referred to the panel propose a unified rate of up to P66.15 per milliliter to align the tax on vapor products with the rates applied to combustible or traditional cigarettes.

Quimbo highlighted that the rising use of vape poses serious health risks, including respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, which could further burden the country’s healthcare system. He stressed the importance of ensuring that fiscal policies are aligned with national priorities to address both public health and consumption trends.

“If vaping continues to surge and its health impacts start to emerge, can the government shoulder the cost of the necessary medical and rehabilitative interventions? If not, it is our duty to rethink the current excise tax rates. We cannot allow a generation to become heavily nicotine-dependent, only to realize later that we underpriced the health risks and underfunded the consequences," he said.