THE Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) urged the government to cut short its observation period on global oil prices following President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval to push through with the fuel excise tax increase in 2019.
“The Philippines has really not done anything because it is a world market price. We are not an oil-producing country; we are just following the trend. We are lucky that oil prices have gone down. In business, prices just go up and down and there is no such thing as up, up and up,” said CCCI president Consul Antonio Chiu.
Chiu earlier agreed with the government to pursue the second round of excise tax increase on fuel next year after world market prices of oil plunged from $80 to $60 per barrel as of last Friday.
“What the government can do to temper the rise of oil prices is through the excise tax. I don’t mind if the government collects excise taxes if it drops so low but if it goes high then they should either reduce it or stop collecting altogether,” he said.
Chiu said they find the current three-month average oil price observation period by the government too long.
“They should allow the mechanism to go faster,” he said.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Wednesday, Dec. 5 that inflation in Central Visayas slowed down from 6.6 percent in October to six percent last month.
The country’s inflation rate last month stood at six percent.
Chiu said the inflation slowed down not because of government efforts but because of natural reasons.
“You can see that the price of rice has started to slowly come down. It went down not because of what the government did. It came down because November is the peak of the harvest season of rice,” he said.
“When you hear the government claiming credit, I’m sorry I do not agree with that. It was simply because of the harvest season,” he added.
Chiu said that the government should look into the factors that affect the inflation and put measures in place to address it.
Interventions
In a joint statement, Duterte’s economic managers said the country should invest in farm mechanization and adopt the latest technology in crop management that includes the utilization of high-yielding and resilient crops.
They said this will improve the productivity of the agriculture sector, which remains vulnerable to changing weather conditions.
The team also vowed to strengthen the country’s sustainable coastal resource management efforts, as global fish production is seen to grow at a slower pace in the next 10 years.
They called on the Department of Agriculture to fast-track the pending release of the Fisheries Administrative Order No. 259 to allow the importation of frozen fish and fishery aquatic products for wet markets during closed and off-season or during the occurrence of calamities.
Watchful eye
Moreover, the team said it would keep a vigilant eye on upward pressures such as volatility in the global oil market.
“In line with these developments, the country’s economic team withdrew the previously announced suspension of the second tranche of increase in fuel excise tax starting January 2019,” the team said.
The team also asked the business sector to avoid any unwarranted price increases as experienced during the rollout of the first tranche of the fuel excise tax increase. (JOB)