Trade Secretary, Peter Favila has proposed adding a tax on text messages to help compensate income losses from proposals to end sales tax on oil products.

Favila told GMANews in an interview that imposing a tax on SMS could make Filipinos shift their focus on endeavors that are more productive. “Texting is also a source of negative reason…(and) it makes people more cynical,” he said in an ambush interview shortly after the weekly press conference of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.