THE tobacco tax fraud has been depriving the poor of vital health services, Health Secretary Paulyn Jean B. Rosell-Ubial said Friday.
Ubial decried how the Mighty Corp. tax mess resulted in a “mighty health miss” for the nation. She said the company’s refusal to pay the appropriate taxes on these products was tantamount to robbing the indigent sector of Filipino society of resources that were rightfully theirs.
Although the cigarette company had earned staggering amounts of money over the past few years by distributing products that support unhealthy habits, she said Mighty Corp. also hurt the Filipino people by failing to pay the legally prescribed taxes meant to support efforts to promote the health of the least privileged in society.
“It’s really a Double Whammy,” said Ubial.
The Bureau of Customs recently discovered that Mighty used fake excise stamps on cigarette packs, prompting Finance officials to estimate the loss of government revenue amounting to P9.56 billion.
Ubial said the funds collected from the excise tax levied on tobacco products were earmarked to finance the Universal Health Care program of the government by virtue of Republic Act 10351, better known as the Sin Tax Reform Law.
Now on its fourth year of implementation, the Sin Tax Reform law provides fiscal space for the Department of Health to implement priority programs promoting health and well-being, thereby protecting Filipinos against illness or injury amid the continually rising costs of health care.
The DOH currently uses revenue generated by Sin Tax in its Medicine Access Program that provides erstwhile costly pharmaceutical products to indigent patients.
The MAP program provides oral maintenance medicines to 1,157,563 hypertension patients and to 441,642 patients being treated for diabetes.
With an augmentation of a mere P1 billion to the program, the DOH would be able to treat 3,975,421 patients with hypertension, and 1,705,030 with diabetes.