A recent study conducted by the National Youth Commission (NYC) shows that 2 out of 5 Pinoy Teens are smokers.

There has been a noteworthy increase in smokers from ages between 13 and 15 years old. Pegging in an over 2 million (38.2 percent) increase compared to previous years.

An earlier study conducted in 2007 revealed that there were a total of 5.72 million Pinoy Teens who were smoking. It was a pretty even share between boys and girls with 2.92 million and 2.80 million smokers respectively. There is surely a need for smoking addiction rehabilitation for these more than five million Pinoy teens.

The NYC is now pushing for the passage of House Bill 5727 or the Restructuring Exercise Tax on Alcohol and Tobacco which would significantly increase the excise tax on tobacco products as a deterrent to keep the minors from buying cigarettes.

NYC chairman Leon Flores III argues that “if the prices of the cigarettes grow significantly, there’ll be less people who will buy them”.

Cendana points out that the Philippines has the cheapest priced cigarettes in the whole South East Asian region, making them even accessible to teenagers. By increasing the prices of tobacco products, teenagers would have limited access to them."

The news is getting worse people, because the Philippines is enlisted as the 9th in the list of countries that have prevalance of smokers.

Personal thoughts on Pinoy Teens and smoking

I’m happy to say that I am not a smoker. I haven’t even tried it. I think it’s very sad that more and more young people engage into smoking. It can be very addicting, people say – and I won’t even argue about it since these stats are pretty much self explanatory.

What truly sucks though is that there are Pinoy Teens engaged into smoking which shouldn’t be. One might say that they are doing it voluntarily- because it’s addicting, sure. But these teens, specially aged 13–15 should not have been introduced to cigarettes in the first place. They are not mature enough to make an intelligent decision whether to smoke or not.

Most of the times these young people are victims of peer pressure or are mimicking their parents or the people around them. Raising the prices is one way of limiting their access, yes, but I think parents should do their part as well and so should the whole society if you find the fact that teens are engaged in smoking alarming.

That’s just smoking hah, what about other awkward things? These states simply make me wonder.