Philippine Government To Clear 15,000 Online Vaping Merchants

Philippine government to clear 15,000 online vaping merchants

"We monitored nearly 15,000 sellers online," said Philippine Trade Undersecretary Ruth Castelo. "We have urged the platform to delete the nearly 15,000 non-compliant platforms we have observed. These sellers have a history of selling non-compliant e-cigarette products."

In the Philippines, unregistered vaping products are subject to the vaping law that came into effect on December 28, 2022. Earlier this year, the Philippine Bureau of Internal Revenue issued a reminder to require all e-cigarette distributors and sellers to fully comply with the government’s business registration requirements and other tax obligations.

Online sellers or distributors who want to sell e-cigarette products through the Internet platform must first register with the Internal Revenue Service and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, or the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Cooperative Development Agency.

Castelo said that if the online platform strictly abided by the law, there would be no need to cancel the sale of the product. It has already marked which products cannot be sold, but some products still evade detection by chance.