House Deputy Minority leader and Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate on Thursday, Oct. 29 slammed the Department of Finance for aggressively pushing for approval of a bill that resulted foregone revenues of P260 billion to government while standing strong against any move to suspend the collection of excise tax on fuel that would result in P147-billion tax loss only if implemented for a full year.

Zarate said corporations and businesses benefitted from the passage of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Acts but at the same time took away from government at least P260 billion in revenues.

During a briefing on the proposed suspension of excise tax on fuel on Wednesday, DOF officials rejected the idea as they warned that this would result to foregone revenues of P147 billion for government.

Zarate noted that while the DOF was fast in granting benefits to businesses, it is slow in giving the masses respite from the impact of uncontrolled fuel price hikes.

The Makabayan bloc and the Department of Energy have sought approval of a bill to relieve the oil industry of excise taxes which in turn would result lower cost of fuel that has soared in the past few months.

"The DOF immediately scares us with big billion numbers for a measure that will benefit many of our impoverished people, yet, it sees nothing wrong when it aggressively pushed the passage of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act, which benefits corporations and businesses and will also result to an estimated loss of P260 billion, more or less, government revenues for 2022," Zarate noted.

The opposition lawmaker assailed the DOF for insisting that government will lose P147 billion if the excise tax on fuel is suspended.

"Wala namang nagsasabi na isuspend ito for a year; lumalabas tuloy mas pinoprotektahan pa ng DOF ang mga malalaking kumpanya kesa sa naghihirap nating mamamayan. (Nobody is saying that the suspension will be for a year; it is becoming apparent that the DOF is protecting big companies than the poor).” said Zarate.

There remains no proposed time frame as to the duration of the suspension of the excise tax.

However, there are proposals that suspension of the fuel tax should be implemented when cost of petroleum hits a certain benchmark.

The much-criticized TRAIN law has provided for excise tax suspension once the price of oil reaches $80 per barrel. This, however, has a sunset provision of just three years - from 2017 to 2020.

Rather than suspend the collection of excise tax, the DOF said it has supported the move to grant P1 billion worth of fuel subsidies to 178,000 public utility vehicle drivers.

"Although the distribution of P1 billion worth of fuel subsidies was a welcome move, this will only directly benefit at least 178,000 public utility vehicle drivers but not the general public," Zarate countered.

“So, we call on the Department of Finance and the economic managers to reconsider their position. If excise tax suspension was recognized in 2018, 2019 and 2020 in anticipation when price of crude breaches the $80 per barrel. There is no reason why we can’t suspend it now when the crude price is already beyond $90 per barrel,” the opposition leader stated.