BETWEEN tobacco tax and public health, the government's choice is clear — money.

Taxes from tobacco fund public health programs anyway.

This was essentially the message that the Philippine delegation to the recently concluded ninth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP9) [...] "Taxes of a vice are called salutary. They fund useful and beneficial purposes," read the delegation's statement, delivered by Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., at the opening of the six-day virtual conference on November 8.

Because of this, health experts have declared that "public health is under attack by the tobacco industry and its proxies," [...]