"23 muna bago toma": Baguio wants higher drinking age under proposed Liquor Code

BAGUIO CITY – Young adults in Baguio may soon have to wait a few more years before legally ordering a drink, as the City Council is considering raising the minimum legal drinking age from 18 to 23 under a proposed revision of the city's three-decade-old Liquor Code.

The proposal forms part of a broader effort to strengthen public health safeguards and reduce alcohol-related harm, following data presented by health officials during council deliberations.

According to the report presented, three out of four students aged 13 to 15 who had consumed alcohol said they started drinking before the age of 14. The Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center also recorded 3,162 alcohol-related emergency cases from 2024 to 2026—an average of 88 admissions every month—many involving road crashes, falls, assaults, and other alcohol-related injuries.

Dr. Donnabel Tubera Panes, Chief of the Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit, said increasing the legal drinking age would help delay alcohol exposure while allowing young people's brains to mature before they begin drinking.

The proposal is an expansion of an earlier measure introduced in May 2026, which originally sought to raise the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 through a revision of the city's Liquor Code.

Aside from increasing the legal drinking age, the proposed ordinance would expand the buffer zone for liquor establishments from 50 meters to 100 meters from schools and other protected institutions. Traditional cultural alcoholic beverages such as tapuey, basi, and tuba would be exempt from the stricter provisions.

Addressing the City Council, Philippine General Hospital addiction specialist Dr. Rafael Legaspi explained that scientific evidence shows the brain's prefrontal cortex—the part responsible for judgment, decision-making, and impulse control—does not fully mature until around 25 years old.

"The brain does not grow or develop all at once. Think of an 18-year-old's brain as a brand-new motorcycle where the accelerator... is completely finished, but the brakes... are still being installed," Legaspi explained, emphasizing that young adults remain more vulnerable to risky behavior despite already being legal adults.

The proposal has sparked lively discussions online. While many social media users supported the measure, saying it could help protect the youth from early alcohol exposure, others reacted with humor, joking that some college students might have to celebrate graduation with soft drinks instead of beer. Others questioned whether the higher age limit would be practical to enforce, especially since the national legal drinking age remains 18.

These reactions reflect the mixed public sentiment as the proposed ordinance continues to be deliberated.

According to the World Health Organization, around 400 million people, or 7 percent of the global population aged 15 and older, live with alcohol use disorders, including 209 million who suffer from alcohol dependence. Health officials said the proposed amendment is intended to reduce these risks through prevention and stronger public health policies.