CSOs and State 18: Civil Society as Lobbyists for More Government? Cigarette Warning Bill

There are moves again to have a new law, mandating and forcing tobacco manufacturers to put warning signs in their cigarette packs like "Smoking Kills".

While I believe that tobacco use is harmful for one's body, while I have no affection for tobacco companies, I do not believe that we need a new law on this.

Notice that in many things in health care and other sectors, people keep asking for new laws, or amending old laws to make the regulations and restrictions more strict. The more that people ask from government, the latter will give more than what they need. like more pork barrel for legislators, more cyber spying law, more mandatory contributions, more taxes.

Notice in particular: health insurance monopoly, gobyerno. Drugs pricing and mandatory discount, gobyerno. Condoms and pills, gobyerno. Sin tax, gobyerno. food labelling, gobyerno. Cigarette warning, gobyerno. Civil society is unimaginative, they see no meaningful role for themselves except to lobby for more government legislation, regulation and coercion?

Some if not many of the "heroes" and "champions" of the RH law, sin tax law, PhilHealth expansion law, both in Congress and Senate, are among the scoundrels and big time thieves in the pork barrel scandal. Now the civil society organizations (CSOs) that pushed hard these bills into laws are now indebted ("utang na loob") to these legislators. It will be a bit awkward for them to demonize these corruption-tainted legislators on the pork barrel robbery and plunder issue.

Another round of political indebtedness, lobbying and pleasing these legislators so they will pass another law, from cigarette warning to more CCT, etc. The role of civil society has been heavily downgraded to plain lobbyists for more government intervention and coercion. Baligtad dapat, it should be the reverse. Civil society is towards more citizen empowerment and self-reliance, not more dependence on government.

A friend commented, “Will civil society empowerment encourage and compel cigarette firms to put these pictures on their packs? “

No, you do not expect cigarette manufacturers to put those "smoking kills" warning in their products voluntarily. The same way that some of those KTV and other girlie bars will disallow prostitution inside their premises voluntarily, even if there are explicit laws, national and local, that prohibit prostitution. The same way that certain importers do not engage in smuggling voluntarily, even if there are explicit laws that prohibit and explicitly penalize smuggling. The same way that some LGUs and police tolerate jueteng and other "illegal gambling", or tolerate "illegal drugs" even if there are explicit laws that prohibit those games and drugs.

Aren't people disappointed enough with "more government" that there are many prohibitions already in society and yet those prohibitions are implicitly tolerated, or were dealt with kids gloves, in exchange for large-scale bribes and corruption? Prostitution, jueteng, drugs, gun running, smuggling, plunder, massacres, political murders.

Civil society should better go to the public directly, produce information materials and explain clearly via posters, cartoons, comics, lectures, etc. that smoking is bad, that heavy smoking kills.

Now if people still keep smoking after being informed, what can you do? They own their body, their lives, let them do what they want with their body. Should government + civil society put lots of spies to discourage and penalize people if they smoke, if they over-drink, if they over-drugs, if they over-eat and over-sit, as all of these lead to bad health outcomes? Not good.

More and more, we are moving to a society of more regulations, more prohibitions and bans, more central planning thinking, more corruption and robbery, more public disappointment. There are many unsolved murders, rapes, abduction, robbery. Government becomes less concerned with them as government is busy implementing new prohibitions -- you cannot drive your own car on certain days of the week, you cannot drive your motorcycle without helmet or with helmet but has no DTI sticker, you cannot put up a bake shop or barber shop unless you get permits from the barangay to sanitation office to the Mayor to BIR, you cannot hire a nanny unless you also give or pay for her SSS, PagIBIG, PhilHealth, and so on.

We should go the reverse. Less prohibitions in society, less role for legislators and need for new legislation, less taxes and pork barrel. Let there be more civil society, less uncivil society that relies on coercion and force, the government. Do we need a new law that will penalize people if they do not give any assistance to victims of heavy flooding, storm surges/tsunami, volcanic eruptions, other natural disasters? Last time I checked, volunteerism and fast civil society response to such calamities was alive and kicking, even if there is no law, not even a bill in congress, that penalize people for being "unhelpful."

ALL legislations are coercion and in effect, prohibitions. In this case, it is prohibited, it is banned, it is not allowed, to sell any cigarette, nga-nga, tabako, etc. with manufactured packaging to be sold unless there is explicit warnings that "tobacco kills", "tobacco is harmful to your body", or graphic photos, etc. There are penalties in the law for violating such prohibitions and bans.

If civil society is seen as citizens movement towards self-reliance and self-empowerment, away from dependence from the state and politicians, civil society leaders can initiate projects without legislation. Like those fast mobilization to help victims of heavy flooding and other calamities even without any law mandating and coercing people to help.

And those legislators and scoundrels involved in corruption and plunder, as much as possible, civil society should ignore and isolate them. Instead of writing to them warm letters like"Dear Hnorable Senator ____, Please support our bill providing this, subsidizing that..."

While we care for the people, we shoud stop deluding ourselves that more government prohibitions will solve many social ills. Too often, more prohibitions create more opportunities for extortion and corruption, more problems than solutions. That is how more people are disappointed with government, they expect a lot, they are disappointed a lot. CSOs should shift the focus of expectation, from government aka uncivil society to civil society, to people themselves.

The less that we need legislators, the less that we need new legislations or new laws, the easier for us to demand drastically shrinking the Legislature, whether a bicameral Congress or unicameral Parliament. But that will not happen if in most social and economic concerns, people demand "Congress should pass a law on ___". They become unwitting lobbyists for more legislators, and many politicians love that. They feel their high importance, there is high demand for their presence, they receive lots of "Dear Honorable Senator/Congressman/woman ____, please support our bill to regulate and prohibit X, to subsidize and expanding spending on Y, to raise taxes and fees to finance X and Y,..."

The role of civil society is to enable people to become more self reliant, more responsible for themselves, their households and communities. To become less dependent on uncivil society that relies on coercion, government.

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See also:
CSOs and State 13: Technology, Omidyar Network and Governments, May 14, 2012

CSOs and State 14: Lady Gaga and the Intolerant Religious Groups, May 21, 2012

CSOs and State 15: Old Debate on Competition and Markets, June 15, 2012 
CSOs and State 16: The Integrity Initiative, December 17, 2012 
CSOs and State 17: UP Pahinungod and Typhoon Victims in Mindanao, December 31, 2012

Pol. Ideology 52: What is the Main Purpose of Government?, October 29, 2013

Tobacco Tax 8: Ban Smoking, or Raise its Tax?

A fellow UPSE alumni and a friend in one of my discussion yahoogroups, Gary Makasiar, made a good argument that instead of debating by how much tax hike to slap on tobacco products, ban smoking outright. Posting this with his permission. The photos are not part of his original posting, I just added them here.  Our exchange has extended, I am putting the dates when the exchanges have taken place. Almost 10 pages long.
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10 March 2012

If we really believe smoking tobacco kills, why is the debate still circling around a/the sin tax? If we are honest with our premises, we should just outright ban domestic smoking of tobacco. The sin tax does not have to even figure in. This tax debate is appearing to be just like some tongue-in-cheek pontification. Proponents pretend to tax in the name of public health but secretly pray for smokers to continue their destructive vices to generate revenue. Much of the tax-happy pressure is coming from financial institutions, not health institutions If we want to realize zero local smoking at the soonest time, the most honest and dramatic way is to make smoking illegal overnight. That automatically does away with the tax debate, altho admittedly, it may not necessarily eradicate local smoking unless enforcement is strict and impeccable.

We should not even be hoping to realize taxes from local smoking if we are sincere about its evil effects. So why does a raging tax debate continue to be entangled with a public health no-brainer? Because any tax deliberation (including the sin tax) could only have arisen from fiscal and financial sources, considerations, motives and objectives. The social harm caused by smoking seems to have been used only as a convenient excuse (escucha) to justify a new tax initiative. Sadly, everyone around the table speaks with forked tongue and bad nicotine breath.


If smoking is truly a health hazard in whatever form, then the logical solution is to ban it. Smoking is anyway easy to monitor and enforce. Th light is visible and the smoke is easily detectible. The telltale signs are difficult to hide indefinitely. Huge rewards for whistleblowers should go a long way to help enforcement. The livelihood of the tobacco farmers can (and indeed, will have to) be addressed as a separate issue. Their efforts can be redirected entirely or partly to tobacco exports instead of being focused on the local market; and for those in farms that no longer have comparative advantage in growing tobacco, the skills of farmers there can be diverted to other crops that enjoy sustained regional demand (congress can allot budgets for retraining purposes, if they feel this to be a national imperative...but it does not have to come from a sin tax at all. Most probably it wont even be necessary as farmers and local enterpreneurs naturally migrate away from the unprfitable tobacco crop), or else to smuggling out local tobacco manufactures towards countries that impose atrociously high sin taxes on tobacco consumption.

Of course, it has to be realized tho that banning could very well just replay the prohibition years of the 20s in the US. Which gave rise to organizations and deviant celebrities like Al Capone. Contraband money was so good that these bosses were rumored to have corrupted city officials so thoroughly everywhere they operated. They became known as untouchables. The stakes were so high, that bootleg rival gangs thought little of wasting each other away. Of course, the alternate version is that local politicians were actually the ones in control and just let Capone and the others do their dirty work, including offing each other.. It is said that local officialdom was so corrupted and local govt protection so complete that the Fed government could only take Capone out on tax evasion charges. No smuggling charge could be made to legally stick. Finally, the US government (possibly envious of city officials) had to back track and lift the policy of prohibition altogether.The problem is that tobacco smoking is a nastier health hazard than alcohol, because of second and third hand smoke. Alcohol is not yet known to possess a similar externality. although drunken driving has had its fair share of the annual death toll.


Not too far back in our history (late 50s, early 60s), blue-seal cigarette smuggling also became rampant when imported brands were subjected to high import duties. Most industry players had to play ball with the politicians who controlled the coastlines nearest to the local markets for protection and safe harbor, and later on also with those who controlled the tobacco-growing regions to benefit from the "protection" offered by the high 'tariff walls'. This period in our history is well known and well-documented. This is prolly what the opponents of the high sin tax are warning against. But if everyone is seriously debating public health, taxes do not even have to figure. If they comtinue to do so, it must be because there is another root agenda even more important to some people than just public health. Possibly, the public kitty.


Here kitty kitty kitty. There kitty kitty kitty. everywhere kitty kitty kitty.

-- Gary

I thanked Gary for his well-argued position. On outrightly banning tobacco products for public health reason, here are some scenes that I see.

1. The corrupt government (national and local) officials and employees who will implement this will be very happy. It will be like the current policy of banning prostitution, banning shabu and other dangerous drugs and substances, banning jueteng and other gambling. All these things banned, sure, but they are all existing, alive and kicking, just around us. Banning them is abetting and encouraging more corruption in government, not controlling or reducing bot the use and practice of those services, as well as government corruption.

2. The public finance officials like those at the DOF, DBM, NEDA, and also those in Congress, will be unhappy because as Gary pointed out, revenues from tobacco products are about kitty-kitty-kitty. They want money from anywhere and from anybody. Pick any reason or alibi, so long as they can get more money from the public with the least resistance, they will do it. If raising the income tax (personal and corporate) to 50 percent or higher will meet minimal resistance, they will do it

3. The health officials like those from the DOH, PhilHealth and PopCom will be unhappy too, contrary to what Gary and other people believe. The health officials have already factored in xx billion pesos per year that will go to their agencies to finance universal healthcare, to finance the fight against lifestyle-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and to finance the purchase of various population control paraphernalia via the forthcoming Reproductive Health (RH) law.

4. The poverty fighters at the UN,WB, ADB and other multilaterals will also be unhappy as all their grand designs and plans to "fight/eliminate poverty" are premised on the government having as much tax money as possible. Even if the government will collect just one-half or one-fourth of the projected P60 B per year in additional revenues from the tax hike, hey, that's still money that can help finance the MDGs and other central planning measures to "fight poverty."

5. Hard core smokers will be unhappy too because the government, again, intervenes in what they think and feel gives them personal utility and satisfaction. Majority of smokers, including PhD guys, alive or already dead, are aware of the risks of smoking but they still want to smoke, why prohibit them from doing so? It's their own lives, their own body and lungs, that will suffer, not somebody else.

People can argue that second-hand smoke is more dangerous than that puffed by the smoker. I disagree. A smoker inhales both first hand and second hand smoke.

So with the above considerations, it seems that allowing smoking but taxing it high enough -- not outrightly banning smoking -- will make the majority of stakeholders happy. Both the tax-hungry and health officials and bureaucracies, the legislative bureaucracies, will be happy, along with the smokers, hard-core or soft-porn smokers.