A MULTI -sectoral organization on Sunday declared its full support for the Duterte administration’s plan to increase the excise tax rate on fuels and cars in the country.
“We at the Clean Air Philippines Movement Inc. strongly supports the initiative of the Duterte administration to impose higher excise tax on dirty fuels and motor vehicles and to give more incentives to producers of cleaner fuels and transportation technologies to help curb the deadly effects of air pollution on the health and lives of Filipinos,” said Clean Air Philippines Movement Inc. president Leo Olarte.
Olarte noted that more than 80 percent of air pollution in Metro Manila comes from unabated emissions of motor vehicles that result in respiratory and cardiovascular (heart attack, stroke and sudden death) diseases.”
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources said emission inventory for the National Capital Region, mobile sources (motor vehicles) in 2012 account for 90 percent of the aggregated discharged amounts of air pollutants in the region.
“We call upon our countrymen to rally behind our move to impose carbon or environmental tax on dirty fuels and smoke belching motor vehicles in the country.” said Olarte, former president of the Philippine Medical Association and currently the vice president of the Philippine Hospital Association,
“The clear and present danger of air pollution from motor vehicles excuses no one. As long as you live in a city with polluted air to breathe you become automatically a victim of deadly air pollution,” Olarte said.
Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua declared that the excise tax measure on fuels and cars is part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s Comprehensive Tax Reform Program that aims to address poverty and inequality in the Philippines.
The Senate Ways and Means committee meanwhile said it would l try to come up with an excise tax for vehicles that will not be too burdensome while helpingease traffic congestion in Metro Manila. The Senate will start debates on the measure when Congress resumes session on July 24.
Senator Sonny Angara, chairman of the committee, said he is thinking of imposing higher taxes on additional vehicles purchased by the same owner that will be collected through the motor vehicle user’s charge.
The House of Representatives last month passed the administration’s tax reform package, which among others, seeks to lower personal income tax while increasing the excise tax on vehicles and fuel.
To make up for the excise tax hike on oil, the administration plans to institute a program which will provide cash cards to public utility vehicle drivers , and a public transport modernization program which will provide subsidies to PUVs that will make the operators shift to a more efficient engine.