President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. (PPA)
Why were gasoline and diesel not part of the excise tax suspension on petroleum products on Monday, April 13?
President Marcos said these will be discussed during a meeting with the UPLIFT Committee on Tuesday.
"That's to be discussed tomorrow," he said when asked in a press briefing, where he announced the suspension of excise tax on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and kerosene.
He, however, did not say whether the excise tax on the products would also be cut or suspended.
According to Marcos, they will also discuss other strategies they can employ to keep prices down and ensure the continued supply of oil, food products, and other raw materials.
The President said they need to ensure that "the running of the economy is going to be normalized."
"All of these measures are mostly centered around the price of food to keep the price of food down," he said.
"The supply of food as well is also something that we think we can assure the public of that the maganda naman ang takbo so far ng ating sa agrikultura (our agriculture sector is doing well so far)," he added.
Marcos stressed the need to continue harvesting and planting to ensure food supply. He said that to do this, they need to avoid a situation where prices of everything have gone up while the selling price remains the same.
He also said it is the balance they are trying to achieve.
"We will continue to support the farmers but we will also keep the prices down," Marcos said.
"The gap that we have to close will be closed by government. It will be government funds that we will have to use. We will have to take funds from other projects, other programs to make sure that that is something that we have attended to," the Chief Executive added.
On Monday, Marcos finally utilized the emergency powers given to him under Republic Act (RA) No. 12316 by suspending the excise tax on LPG and kerosene.