Cayetano said that as far as she is concerned, the poor deserve a better kind of happiness – one that will make their families healthy.
“I would often hear: ‘Do not deprive the poor of the things that make them happy,’ supposedly alcohol and cigarettes. That is such a sad, sad fact. Because in the long run, that is what causes them so much misery,” Cayetano told reporters in an interview after conducting a hearing on the various bills that seek to increase sin taxes on alcohol and e-cigarette products.
But Cayetano said industry players should also stop painting such false picture and that the proposed sin taxes would lead to job losses. “If it is our goal to become an upper-middle income country, can we not leave our poor with this kind of happiness? Can we offer them instead a better kind of happiness, including educating them as to the right choices they could make?” she pointed out.
“When we are talking about taxing sin products, please do not scare the people into thinking that what the government is trying to do is harmful to the Filipino people,” she appealed.