Filipinos watch fireworks light up the sky to welcome in the New Year in Manila, Philippines, Saturday Jan. 1, 2011. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
MANILA (Mabuhay) – A proposal to regulate the use of firecrackers by imposing a 20-percent excise tax on their sale remains stuck at the House Ways and Means committee, with the Department of Finance (DOF) yet to submit its position paper on the measure.
“We are awaiting the DOF position, their estimates,” said committee chairman Marikina City Rep. Romero “Miro” Quimbo.
Although the panel has been deliberating on House Bill 3685 since last year, Quimbo said its passage will depend on its enforceability.
“The basic philosophy is that we don’t pass a revenue measure that is not administratively feasible,” he said.
The proposal, authored by Ako Bicol party-list Reps. Rodel Batocabe and Christopher Co, seeks to amend Section 150-A, Chapter VI of RA 8242, otherwise known as the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997, by imposing a 20 percent excise tax on firecrackers.
Republic Act 7183, the law on firecrackers and other pyrotechnic devices, only prohibits and penalizes the sale of illegal firecrackers.
Representatives from the firecrackers industry have opposed the measure, saying locally manufactured firecrackers and pyrotechnics comprise only 20 percent of the market.
Celso Cruz of the Philippine Pyrotechnics Manufacturers and Dealers Association of the Philippines Inc. (PPMDAPI) and Joven Ong of the Philippine Firecrackers Association (PFA) told lawmakers at the committee hearings that the local firecrackers industry will suffer if HB 3685 becomes a law.
Instead of imposing taxes, Cruz and Ong said the government should work on curbing the smuggling of illegal fireworks and firecrackers, which are believed to cause majority of firecracker-related injuries.
From Dec. 21, 2014 to Dec. 31, 2014, the Department of Health (DOH) has recorded 351 fireworks-related injuries across the country, down from the 578 cases recorded for the same period in 2013.
According to Health Secretary Janette Garin, the 2014 figure was the lowest recorded over the last five years. (MNS)