Days before the May 13 elections, President Aquino showed up in one of the Team PNoy rallies coughing intermittently in the course of a brief speech. Malacañang may not want to make a big deal out of it, but the health of the president of this country is a big deal, a concern of every Filipino, by reason of office and responsibility.
If the past week was one devoted to thoughts of death, of sacrifice, of transforming the end of life to the beginning of a new one, the days right after Easter are perhaps best observed by turning our thoughts to birth, to life and to preserving it.
“Is Aquino breaking antismoking rules daily?” (Inquirer, 12/6/12) The answer is unfortunately a big yes. While I was reading this article by one of my favorite columnists, Rigoberto Tiglao, two individuals came to my poor memory. The first was how lucky a man can be. I am referring to our good Vice President Jejomar Binay [...]
Being an ex-smoker, I certainly commiserate with President Benigno Aquino’s failure to free himself from nicotine. But he is the President of the Republic, whose sworn duty is to implement the Constitution, and every law and rule that flow out from that basic law. And illegal cigarette stubs shouldn’t after all be littering the straight [...]
There are posters put up downtown by some heartless monsters that say, “NO TO SIN TAX, JOBS NOT TAXES,” as it is “Anti-laborers, anti-farmers, anti-poor.”
There are no screaming headlines, but the young and the poor, who smoke and drink excessively, are dying every day.
Sin tax is an excise tax imposed on goods such as cigarettes and liquor or activities like gambling that are considered harmful or immoral.
My own experience, or ordeal, with smoking is this: I began smoking when I was 17. I took my first puff of cigarettes a year earlier and went into a violent fit of coughing. A year later, I was inhaling the smoke, sucking it with a fury, and liking it.
On Dec. 21, Congress closes down for the year. That’s the day when the sin tax law must be voted upon. By Jan. 21, when Congress resumes, politicians will be consumed by thoughts of winning again. And raising taxes is not a way to win votes. So it must be now.
The people who toiled through the night to get the sin taxes passed have every reason to be pissed off at Ralph Recto. They can only feel stabbed in the back. The difference between P60 billion and P15 billion is vast, the first being the revenue that would have been gotten from the original sin tax bill and the second from Recto’s watered-down version of it. The charge that he’s more concerned with protecting the health of the tobacco industry than that of his countrymen is believable.
“Smoking is an abnormal action for a human being,” says former Thai Sen. Prakit Vathesatogkit. “When you see smoke and feel its choking effect, it’s an instinct not just for people but even for animals to run away from it and seek fresh air.” But people who light up cigarettes or cigars voluntarily and even avidly inhale smoke into their throats and lungs before exhaling it. And once someone starts smoking, says Dr. Prakit, in less than a year, he or she will become addicted.
Increased smuggling, tobacco farmers losing their livelihood, even the rights of individuals who, despite countless warnings, persist in maintaining their smoking habit—all these have been brought up as “legitimate” concerns that legislators should take into consideration as they debate and get ready to vote on the “sin tax” bill.
