More than 17 billion liters of fuel were marked in 2020 under the Fuel Marking Program, a drive to curb fuel smuggling in the country, the Bureau of Customs said.
A total of 17.55 billion liters of petroleum products from various fuel companies in the country were marked from Sept. 4, 2019 to Dec. 31, 2020.
According to the bureau, this is equivalent to P147.78 billion and P23.94 billion of duties and taxes collected by the Customs bureau and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
"For 2020 alone, 15.69 billion liters of fuel were marked equivalent to P109.36 billion and P21.81 billion duties and taxes collected by BoC and BIR," the bureau said.
"It is also worthy to note that significant increase in volume declarations in gasoline, diesel, and kerosene were observed through the implementation of the Fuel Marking Program," it added.
In 2017 and 2018, total volume of declarations reached 7.75 billion liters and 6.31 billion liters, respectively, equivalent to duties and taxes collected of P26.88 billion and P39.79 billion.
In 2019, total volume declaration was at 11.16 billion liters or an increase of 77 percent from the previous year. This is equivalent to P111.18 billion or an increase of 179 percent of duties and taxes collected for the government.
Diesel comprises 61.54 percent of the total volume marked, followed by gasoline with 37.93 percent and kerosene with 0.53 percent.
Most of the marked fuel were from Luzon with 74.08 percent, 20.92 percent in Mindanao, and five percent in Visayas.
Since the first actual marking in September 2019, 22 oil firms are now marking for the second year of the program.
Petron Corp. remains with the highest marked volume with 4.03 billion liters of fuel marked, followed by Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. with 3.49 billion liters, Unioil Petroleum Philippines Inc. with 1.84 billion liters, Seaoil Philippines Inc. with 1.44 billion liters, and Chevron Philippines Inc. with 1.36 billion liters.
Other participating companies were Phoenix Petroleum, Insular Oil, Total, Filoil, Jetti, PTT, Marubeni, Micro Dragon, Warbucks, Golden Share, High Glory Subic, ERA1, SL Harbor, Jadelink, SL Gas, Powerfill, and Petrotrade.
The bureau said this year, they aim to gear up for the implementation of the field testing phase of the program in which diesel, gasoline, and kerosene found in retail stations, tank trucks, vessels, depots, and warehouses shall be tested for compliance under the Fuel Marking Program.