{"id":987521854,"date":"2021-06-16T03:09:32","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T02:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/news\/for-universal-healthcare-the-philippines-tries-sin-taxes\/"},"modified":"2023-03-02T10:16:07","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T09:16:07","slug":"for-universal-healthcare-the-philippines-tries-sin-taxes","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/news\/for-universal-healthcare-the-philippines-tries-sin-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"For Universal Healthcare, the Philippines Tries \u201cSin Taxes\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Rising healthcare costs in The Philippines owing to inadequate public investment prevents citizens from going for regular checkups and the country from achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). To address this, three laws that have come into legislation in the recent years with the aim of expanding health coverage to Filipinos and taxing tobacco and alcohol, what are know as \u201cSin Taxes\u201d to finance the provision of UHC and discourage consumption of \u201csin products\u201d \u2018resulting in health benefits overall.\u2019<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>These include<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>The&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.officialgazette.gov.ph\/downloads\/2019\/02feb\/20190220-RA-11223-RRD.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Universal Health Care (UHC) Act<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>&nbsp;passed in 2019 that provides for enrolling of all&nbsp;<span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Filipinos in the National Health Insurance Program and requires a more robust system of primary-care providers<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>The&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/taxreform.dof.gov.ph\/bills\/republic-act-no-11346-tobacco-tax-law-2019\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Tobacco Tax Law 2019<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>&nbsp;that raised the cigarette tax to PHP 45 (Philippine peso) in 2020&nbsp;<span><span><span><span><span><span><span>with an annual increase of PHP 5.00 until it reaches PHP 60.00 per pack (USD 1.30) in 2023, and a 5 percent annual increase thereafter.&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/taxreform.dof.gov.ph\/bills\/ra-11467-increase-excise-taxes-on-alcohol-and-e-cigarettes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Republic Act 11467<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>&nbsp;raised excise taxes on alcohol and the newly added e-cigarettes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>The Government estimates PHP 16 billion in taxes from the Tobacco Tax Law 2019 and an additional PHP 25 billion from the excise taxes that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/taxreform.dof.gov.ph\/bills\/ra-11467-increase-excise-taxes-on-alcohol-and-e-cigarettes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Republic Act 11467<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>&nbsp;enforces that is expected to accelerate the UHC goal in Philippines.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>(1 Philippine Peso PHP= 0.021 US Dollar USD)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>To know more read the entire article originally published in <a href=\"https:\/\/asiafoundation.org\/2020\/03\/04\/for-universal-healthcare-the-philippines-tries-sin-taxes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Asia Foundation here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Image Credits: <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.thewire.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/30120913\/2021-03-29T112356Z_1_LYNXMPEH2S0RE_RTROPTP_4_HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-PHILIPPINES-1200x600.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Wire<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Have anything to say about the Philippines&#8217; policy of financing UHC through &#8220;Sin&#8221; taxes? Please let us know in the Comments Section below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rising healthcare costs in The Philippines owing to inadequate public investment prevents citizens from going for regular checkups and the country from achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). To address this, three laws that have come into legislation in the recent years with the aim of expanding health coverage to Filipinos and taxing tobacco and alcohol,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":559,"featured_media":987530030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[],"tags":[131,133],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/987521854"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=987521854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/987521854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/987530030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=987521854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=987521854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4h.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=987521854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}