(Eagle News)–Senator Sonny Angara urged the country’s economic managers to ensure inflation will go down and that Filipinos will be able to get their support from the government before deciding to push through with the second round of excise tax hike on petroleum products.
“We recognize that international prices of petroleum have been going down and will continue to decline in 2019. This led to seven consecutive weeks of price rollbacks, with pump prices of gasoline and diesel decreasing by P9.85/liter and P8.40/liter, respectively. However, these oil price reductions have to be felt by Filipino families. Hindi po dito dapat nagtatapos ang rollback,” Angara said in a statement.
He said there should also be a decline in the prices of goods.
So far, he added he has not received any information the government was already fully implementing social mitigating measures, particularly the unconditional cash transfer, pantawid pasada and discounts.
“Bago pagdesisyunang ituloy ang pagtaas ng excise tax, kailangang siguruhin na bababa na ang inflation at buo nang matatanggap ang mga ayuda,” he said.
Earlier, Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez announced economic managers had withdrawn their recommendation to suspend the second round of increase of excise tax on petroleum products under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law.
This was following the decrease in the prices of Dubai crude in the world market, among others.