A bill seeking to maintain a two-tiered excise tax on cigarettes could impact on the government’s infrastructure development program and reverse the positive health effects of lower tobacco consumption, an analyst said.

“We think this can be detrimental to the revenue-raising activities [of the government] needed to carry out the ambitious plans of the government to bolster infrastructure spending,” Emilio Neri Jr., vice president and lead economist at the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), said on Wednesday.

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