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— The Editors

Responsible selling of alcoholic beverages online pushed

By Kris Crismundo

May 25, 2023, 9:31 pm

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<div dir="auto"> ILLICIT ALCOHOL. Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines Director General Rowel Barba delivers his speech at the launch of Promoting Responsible Environment for the Online Sale of Alcoholic Beverages in the Philippines seminar at Dusit Thani Manila in Makati City on Thursday (May 25, 2023). He highlighted the need for enhanced cooperation between the public and private sectors to eliminate trade of illicit alcohol in the country. (PNA photo by Kris Crismundo)  </div>
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 ILLICIT ALCOHOL. Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines Director General Rowel Barba delivers his speech at the launch of Promoting Responsible Environment for the Online Sale of Alcoholic Beverages in the Philippines seminar at Dusit Thani Manila in Makati City on Thursday (May 25, 2023). He highlighted the need for enhanced cooperation between the public and private sectors to eliminate trade of illicit alcohol in the country. (PNA photo by Kris Crismundo)  
 
MANILA – The Alcoholic Beverages Alliance of the Philippines, Inc. (ABAPI) reiterated its pledge to promote responsible selling of their products online amid the increasing illicit trade in the sector.
 
On Thursday, 14 distributors of alcoholic beverages and the online shopping platform Lazada signed the e-Commerce Pledge to combat illicit trade of alcohol, which poses wide range of negative socio-economic impact in the country.
 
Asia Pacific International Spirits and Wines Alliance (APISWA) Director Hermance Dela Bastide said the Philippines has one of the largest fiscal losses from illicit alcohol in the ASEAN and also a high share of unrecorded alcohol consumed in the market.
 
Data from the “Tackling Illicit Trade in ASEAN” show that the Philippine government lost USD438 million in 2016 due to illicit alcohol, behind Vietnam at USD441 million but higher than Thailand and Indonesia at USD83 million and USD69 million, respectively.
 
Illicit alcohol means that the products do not comply with the regulations and taxes of a country. It also include unrecorded alcohol that is not accounted in the official taxation statistics, such as bottles of alcoholic beverages included in Balikbayan packages.
 
Based on data from the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Health Observatory 2022, 31 percent of alcoholic beverages consumed in the Philippines in 2019 were unrecorded, the highest compared to Brunei at 22 percent, Thailand, 21 percent; China, 20 percent; South Korea, 14 percent; Singapore,14 percent; and Japan, 14 percent.
 
Countries in Asia with the highest share of unrecorded consumed alcohol are Vietnam, 57 percent; Indonesia, 56 percent; Cambodia, 43 percent; Malaysia, 38 percent; and Laos, 33 percent.
 
Thus, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Assistant Secretary Jean Pacheco underscored the importance of responsible selling of alcoholic beverages as the country’s e-commerce sector is growing.
 
She said that from 2020 to 2022, there were 3,559 new business name registrations related to the sale of alcoholic beverages.
 
She added that 5 percent of the total food and beverage orders online are alcoholic beverages.
 
Although consumer complaints involving alcoholic beverages are relatively low, the number is increasing year-on-year for the month of May. Most of these are related to deceptive, unfair and unconscionable sales acts or practices, liability for products and services, and consumer product quality and safety.
 
For the part of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL), Director General Rowel Barba said his office has been closely coordinating with the country’s leading online shops to eliminate products with intellectual property (IP) infringement.
 
He said that between August to September 2021 and March to April 2022, Lazada increased its IP-infringing listings removal by 118 percent while another online shopping site, Shopee, removed 400 percent more products with IP infringement.
 
Commenting on the negative socio-economic impacts of illicit alcohol in the country, Barba said the trend is alarming if this will continue.
 
“This could mean irreversible health consequences, and even deaths to our people. This is also alarming in terms of the revenues we lost and could have used to further develop our country,” he added. (PNA)
 

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