Clearing the smoke

The Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH) is pushing for higher taxes on tobacco products to help fund the requirements of the Universal Health Care Bill, according to a GMA News story.
But the DOH Secretary Francisco Tiongson Duque said the proposal was aimed also at reducing the incidence of smoking in the country.
The Universal Health Care Bill has been approved by the Congress and Senate, and is now awaiting the president’s authorization.
The news story reported that a Pulse Asia survey in September had shown that 67 percent of Filipinos are in favor of higher taxes on tobacco – a figure that seems low given that 78.4 percent of Filipinos don’t smoke.
Duque said that if tobacco taxes were raised as proposed, the percentage of smokers in the country would drop from 21.6 to 15.7.
If a pack of cigarettes was taxed at P97, an estimated one million people would be saved from dying from smoking-related diseases.
Meanwhile, Dr. Gundo Weiler, the World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in the Philippines, said that one out of three Filipinos died before they reached the age of 70, most of them due to smoking.
Weiler said that the strategy of the DOH was a win-win situation that targeted more funds for health care, while, at the same time, reducing the population of smokers in the country.