Robredo: Gov’t should suspend excise tax on fuels to arrest inflation

VICE President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo lamented the government’s slow action to address the high inflation rate in the country.

She is also pushing for the suspension of the excise tax on fuels as one of the solutions to address INGRUPO flation.

Robredo, who was here in Bacolod City yesterday for 5th Provincial Congress of the Negros Occidental Small Fishers Alliance, said she has already been talking about inflation when she noticed it in January this year.

“I have been asking the administration to address the problem on the shortage of rice supply because signs have been there but the government has not been taking the problem seriously,” Robredo said.

She pointed out that the administration has been pointing to the high fuel prices as the reason for the high inflation in the country, however, she believes it is just a factor that drives inflation.

“We have several neighboring countries who also experience the same high prices of fuels but inflation there are not as high as this in the country. Our inflation is so high compared to other neighboring countries,” Robredo added.

Robredo said there are a lot of solutions to inflation in the country like the suspension of the excise tax on fuels which they have been pushing two months ago.

The excise tax on fuels was imposed on January and there will be another increase on January 2019, she said.

Robredo is also pushing for the speedy implementation of the unconditional cash transfer because there should already be 10 million Filipinos who should have been given P200 per month since January but as of this month, only about 7 million were given and many still have not received it. “Worst, those who have not receive the subsidy are the poorest of the poor.”

The Vice President is also pushing for the expansion of the unconditional transfer that would include the fisherfolk who are also affected by the high prices of fish because of the high cost of fuels.

She said that the government should review the subsidy because the inflation rate has already reached P6.7 percent and the P200 cash subsidy is really not enough.

Meanwhile, Robredo said that the administration seems to be desperate for coming out with proposals to name the Senate President as the president’s successor and not her, as the vice president.

“They are trying everything to remove me. There was a case in the Supreme Court, an impeachment case, too, which did not prosper,” Robredo said.

“Let me remind Congressman Vicente Veloso, chairman of the House committee on constitutional amendments, that I won over Mr. Marcos (Ferdinand Marcos Jr.) by 100,000. We all know that every election in the Philippines, those who won are charged by those who cannot accept defeat,” she said.

She also said, “if they remove the provision on succession...it is better if there will be no vice president anymore. The mandate of the vice president is to replace the president if something happens.*