Tobacco farmers say high taxes endanger livelihood

The Philippine Tobacco Growers Association said that high tobacco taxes will endanger their livelihood contrary to government claims that they will benefit from them. The 20,000 members of the group say that the fact that the government is encouraging them to plant other crops means it is not true there will be enough buyers for their products. PTGA president Saturnino Distor said they do not believe that alternative crop programs and funding have been prepared for them. We do not agree that there will be buyers for our harvest.

 The government knows that our only livelihood will be affected which is why they are pushing us to plant other crops,” Distor stressed. They added that based on their experience, government support promised them are not enough and often come late. Distor said that tobacco is a cash crop that provides them good income that supports their family’s needs and their children’s education. He explained they have tried planting other crops like corn, but this did not give them the same income they get from tobacco. He reiterated that the tax bill of the DOF and the Department of Health (DOH) will wipe out a large percent of farmers’ incomes as well as threaten the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of factory workers dependent on the industry.

 The PTGA appealed to the Senate to remove these anti-farmer and anti-worker provisions in the excise tax bill on tobacco and alcohol products approved by the House of Representatives last month. The PTGA president explained that their harvest are bought by big manufacturers as well as small cigarette makers. And that a considerable volume of their harvest are bought for the manufacture of low-priced brands, which under the amended House Bill 5727 threatens to put these out of the market.

The very high tax of as much as 708 percent on low-priced cigarette brands, which small manufacturers make, will price these products out of the market leaving the farmers with no market to sell a significant volume of their annual production, Distor noted. “This is a big dent on our income. How can we recoup our production and operational costs in planting tobacco if we can not sell all our produce?” he asked. “We appeal to the Senate to correct the grossly unfair and inequitable provisions in the House tax bill, which threatens the survival not only of tobacco farmers, but of the millions of others dependent on the tobacco industry.”