Agustin, Eunice G.
BSA-IA
NEWS UPDATES
NOVEMBER 29, 2018
(1) Tobacco Tax Hiked to help Fund Health Care Law
One senator sought to raise the taxes on tobacco products and with these higher excise
taxes, the Universal Health Care Law fund will certainly increase.
Senator JV Ejercito stated that he sought to raise the tobacco tax into P 90.00 per pack
which is higher than the proposal of Sen. Manny Pacquiao (P 60.00) and also in the
House of Representatives (P 45.00)
Now the senate and the house already approved the bicameral committee report and they
are already making a way for the President Rodrigo Duterte will sign the document.
As stated by Ejercito, “Right now I have already filed an increase in sin taxes,
particularly in tobacco tax because in the Asian Market, we have still the lowest, if not
the lowest, price of tobacco products per pack.
In line with the Universal Health Care Law, they will also provide annual check-ups and
laboratory tests. Thus he added, “People go to the hospital when they are already very
sick. We want to strengthen the preventive side of the health care”.
(2) The price of LPG and Petroleum are expected to decrease, as the month of
December starts
Consumers are now expecting that there is a “big time” decrease in the price of diesel,
petroleum and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as the month of December starts.
In the first three days of trading, there will be P 2.00 decrease in per litre of gasoline
while P 1.93 in diesel. But they assume that the decreased price will change.
If their assumptions that there will be decreased in gasoline is true, it will be the eighth
week that the price of gasoline, diesel is decreasing. Now, if we carefully notice, from
October 15 up to now. The amount being deducted from the price gasoline ranges from P
10.05 to 10.20 while on the diesel it ranges from 8.45 to 8.55.
There will be decreased in the price of LPG in December 1. According to the Oil Indistry
Management Bureau Assistant Director Rodela Romero, the amount being deducted from
per kilo of LPG ranges from P 5.00 to P 6.00.
In connection to this, the Economic Managers are retrieving their recommendation to
increase the tax on petroleum’s on January 2019.
In connection to the low priced gasoline, one station in Malolos Bulacan is confirmed
that they offer low quality product in exchange of low price. The statement given by that
station is that their product has 95 research octane number (RON) but the laboratory
results did not match their statement. They also found out that the bio-diesel ingredient of
the sample diesel is not insufficient. However, the DOE refused to state the name of the
said gasoline station
(3) Inflation likely at 5.8 to 6.6 percent in November: BSP
As stated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas think tank, the inflation slowed to a range of
5.8 to 6.6% this November, slowing from the previous 2 months. As BSP’s Department
Economic Research said, the cause of price spikes to slow are the falling oil prices,
normalization of rice supply and the strengthening of the peso against the dollar. It is also
said that, higher jeep and bus fares and an increase in power rates will partly offset the
slower inflation in other commodities.
In the think tank statement, he mentioned that the BSP will keep assessing the
developments to ensure the achievement of its primary mandate of price stability
conducive to balanced and sustainable economic developments.
(4) Additional Tax on lubricants is expected on January
The government might really push through on having additional tax on lubricants as
recommended by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez. However they are still waiting
for the response of President Rodrigo Duterte.
In one conference, Dominguez e mentioned that the Development Budget Coordination
Committee cannot already see the reason why they need to suspend the additional tax on
lubricants because of the low prices in the world market.
This recommendation of Dominguez will be further discussed this coming December 4,
2018, Tuesday.
It was already said first by the Economic team last October that they need to suspend the
additional tax on lubricants because of the issues concerning inflation (prices of products
went high) however this past few weeks, the price of the lubricants in the world market
already decreased.
As stated by the Train Law, there will be an increase of tax on gasoline in every 3 years
starting on January 1, 2018. Sen. Ejercito is one of the senators convincing President
Duterte to already suspend the having additional tax on lubricants.
