BAGUIO CITY — Members of the Baguio City Council are finalizing a proposed ordinance seeking to raise the city’s minimum legal drinking age from 18 to a higher, more feasible age.

What began as a discussion to regulate the distance between alcohol-selling establishments and protected institutions has broadened into a comprehensive health measure supported by the World Health Organization and medical experts.

To ensure the policy withstands future legal challenges, lawmakers and health officials are anchoring the measure on statutory precedents, public consultation data, and scientific research regarding adolescent brain development.

City councilor Paulo Salvosa cited that while the age of majority was lowered to 18 under the 1987 Constitution primarily for voting rights, emancipation under Philippine law is not absolute.

Existing statutory provisions already restrict certain activities for young adults, such as requiring parental consent or advice for marriage under the Family Code, setting the legal gambling age at 21 under Presidential Decree 1869, and raising the legal age for smoking and vaping to 21 under Republic Act 11467.

Lawmakers stressed that intoxicating and addictive substances require similar legislative safeguards to protect youth.

Dr. Rafael Legaspi, of the Philippine General Hospital Division of Addiction Recovery Medicine, differentiated civic rights from substance use.

Voting is a sober action that encourages civic responsibility, Legaspi explained, whereas alcohol chemically alters a brain that continues to develop well past age 18. The brain’s prefrontal cortex, which governs decision-making and impulse control, does not fully mature until around age 25.

Raising the legal drinking age to 23 gives young individuals the time necessary for full neurological development and helps prevent early-onset addiction, Legaspi said, emphasizing that the measure is intended to protect youth rather than punish them.