The government’s crucial measures aiming at reducing tobacco consumption faces challenges as the resurgence of local tobacco industry brought about huge economic gains and local tobacco firms continue to lobby.
After being cut by almost half – the tobacco-planting area went down from about 40,000 hectares in 2001 to 22,000 in 2008 the crop is enjoying a revival in the last three years.
Latest figures from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics show that land devoted to growing tobacco surged to nearly 30,000 hectares in 2010. Tobacco planting has also expanded from the northern Philippine province of Ilocos Sur, the country’s tobacco center, to the province of Occidental Mindoro.
The tobacco-planting area grew from 250 hectares in 2008 to 262 hectares in 2010. Production increased from 32,466 tons in 2008 to 44,950 tons in 2011.
Indeed, tobacco was one of the country’s fastest growing crop last year, rising by 10.93 percent or almost twice the average 5. 78 percent growth rate for all crops, according to the BAS.
No doubt, the resurgence of the tobacco industry has created more jobs and income for the estimated 2.7 million people who are said to depend on the industry. It has even brought in more foreign exchange for the country. Tobacco exports rose from 43.6 million kilograms in 2008 to 56.94 million kilograms in 2010, generating nearly $270 million in export receipts.
The Philip Morris Philippine Manufacturing Inc.’s new factory in the province Batangas is making cigarettes not only for the Philippine market but also for export.
Even the government has benefited. Tax collections from the industry reached P25.8 billion ($60.99 million) in excise in 2010, according to the finance department.
But not everybody welcomes the revival of the tobacco industry. Government doctors and tobacco control advocates warned that the more jobs, income and exports the industry contributes to the economy, the more difficult it could be for the Philippine government to curb cigarette consumption which have adverse effects on the health of smokers and non-smokers alike.
The Philippine government ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a global treaty which aims to cut tobacco use and its huge impact on public health.
But economic gains brought by the resurgence of local tobacco industry combined with strong lobbying from tobacco firms are hurting the government’s implementation of crucial measures to reduce tobacco consumption and protect public health, according to critics of the tobacco industry.
“It’s like walking a tightrope. The government wants to get more revenues but it also needs to protect the health of its people,” economist Ruben Carlo Asuncion said.
Health Assistant Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial said it should not be difficult for the government to decide which way to go because social and economic costs of smoking clearly outweigh the benefits.
