Duterte mobilizes government team vs rising prices

MANILA, Philippines — As the public continues to agonize over rising prices due to surging global crude cost and the effects of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law, President Duterte has mobilized concerned agencies and ordered them to take immediate steps to ease consumer woes and protect them from profiteers.

In an interview with dzMM, presidential spokesman Harry Roque yesterday said the Chief Executive is aware of the plight of consumers and is doing his best to address the situation.

He said Duterte has ordered Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez to ensure the public is protected from predatory pricing as he warned profiteers of severe sanctions if caught.

“The President is not callous or insensitive to what is happening. Nobody wants oil prices to be this high,” he said in Filipino.

“Now, the President wants three things done – first, for the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) to monitor and apprehend violators of the law on standard retail price,” he said. He estimated some 70 percent of businessmen could be taking advantage of the situation.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), upon Malacañang’s instructions, has also asked regional wage boards and other groups to convene and discuss possible wage hikes.

The Department of Energy, meanwhile, has been directed to explore the feasibility of importing cheaper fuel – especially diesel – from nations outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) like Russia.

Roque warned unscrupulous businessmen of hefty fines or shutdown of their establishments if they are caught engaged in profiteering. He said the DTI’s surveillance teams are operating in full force.

Roque said labor chief Silvestre Bello III has ordered all 17 regional tripartite wages and productivity boards to study calls by concerned groups for wage increase to help workers weather the rising inflation. He said any wage increase would be in accordance with procedures provided for under the Labor Code.

For former Senate president Aquilino Pimentel III, a review of the TRAIN law by the Department of Finance (DOF) is in order.

As the new chairman of the Senate committee on trade, industry and entrepreneurship, Pimentel voiced concern about reports of disparity in the prices of goods in Metro Manila and other parts of the country.

Together with the committee on economic affairs headed by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, Pimentel said he would look into the reasons why there is great disparity in prices across regions.

“My call is for the DOF to review this. Because world oil prices have gone up and this was not within the predictions when the TRAIN was being discussed in Congress,” Pimentel said over dwIZ radio.

He recalled that the law was based on projections that world crude prices were going down.

“So if all our assumptions were wrong, it is time that they review this and they should either suspend, reduce or repeal (the TRAIN provision),” Pimentel said.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said he also supports the suspension of the provision in the law that increases excise tax on fuel but pointed out that there are other factors that contribute to the hike in the price of fuel and other goods.

For instance, he said the weak peso was also a factor in the price fluctuations.

However, he agreed with the proposals of Senators Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Grace Poe, Pimentel and Joseph Victor Ejercito for the suspension of the increase in the excise tax on fuel especially now that world crude prices were nearing the $80 per barrel mark.

Recto said the suspension could be done automatically as envisioned by Congress when it crafted the TRAIN. “They can suspend this if they wanted to,” Recto said.

Appeal to President

 Rep. Michael Romero of party-list group 1-Pacman said he was raising his appeal for the suspension of collection of taxes on diesel and other oil products to President Duterte himself.

“I appeal to the President to suspend the imposition of taxes on fuel until inflation subsides, the peso stabilizes and the price of crude oil in the world market goes down,” Romero said.

He said the price of crude is nearing the $80-per-barrel level, while the value of the peso has fallen to a 12-year low at P52.70 to the US dollar.

He said a further increase in crude cost and deterioration of the peso would have a domino effect on consumer prices.

Romero explained that under the TRAIN law, the DOF is authorized to suspend the second and third installments of the new and higher taxes once the price of crude reaches $80 per barrel.

He said the DOF would base its review on the three-month average cost of crude.

“However, I feel that the waiting period of three months may be a long time for the country – for the poor and middle class especially – to wait. Consider also that the effects of three months of $80 per barrel of oil can linger for many months after,” he said.

He said he would file a bill to amend the law and allow the DOF to conduct a review earlier than the three-month timeframe.

In the meantime, he added that the President could temporarily stop the collection of fuel taxes.

Other congressmen and at least three senators are also calling for the suspension of oil levies.

TRAIN imposed a P6 tax on diesel, cooking gas, kerosene and bunker fuel, which is used to produce electricity. The tax was spread over three years beginning this year up to 2020.

The amount of levy this year varies on the product. It is P2.50 per liter for diesel and P1 per kilogram for cooking gas.

Militant groups are blaming the new and higher taxes on fuel for the spikes in consumer prices.

And what made matters worse for consumers, they said, is the 12-percent value added tax prescribed by the law.

Thus, the P2.50 tax on diesel starting in January this year became almost P3 per liter.

But a large part of the increase in the cost of diesel and other oil products is due to rising prices of crude oil in the world market.

Only last Tuesday, higher crude cost caused local prices to increase by P1.60 per liter for gasoline and P1 for diesel.

Labor group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) has also asked Malacañang to take immediate actions to arrest the skyrocketing prices of goods and commodities.

In a statement, BMP president Luke Espiritu said that Malacañang is engaged in a “blame game” by pointing to world oil prices as the culprit “instead of using the powers of the state to address the people’s complaints against inflation.”

“The Duterte regime is reactive only insofar as to putting the blame on other factors rather in doing proactive measures to curb the general rise in prices,” he noted.

Espiritu said this “reveals the president’s utter lack of sympathy to a people whose pockets are being emptied sooner than their next payday or income because of inflation.”

He added that in times of emergencies, the president can always enforce price regulation to “secure the lives and livelihood of the Filipino people.”

“Every peso increase in the price of basic necessities spells disaster to the workers and the poor. Yet he only lifted a finger to blame the world market rather than to sign a decree to curb prices, he maintained.

According to Espiritu, the “president’s lack of empathy to the wails and woes of the Filipino majority” is evident in his “continued implementation of the neoliberal economic policies, which he adopted from his predecessor and favorite punching bag Noynoy Aquino.”   

He said that Duterte’s “so-called platform for change is a scam and we have not seen any major change in our country’s economic policies.”

“Duterte only needs a kind heart and the political will to implement the reversal of the deregulation for oil prices, for this temporal but immediate situation, which should be the first step towards the outright repeal of the oil deregulation law,” he added. – With Jess Diaz, Lawrence Agcaoili, Marvin Sy, Sheila Crisostomo