Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi on Wednesday urged the oil distributors to continue providing discounts to jeepneys after Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. announced an additional discount of P0.25 per liter.
He made his plea even as the House of Representatives, in a viva voce voting Tuesday night, approved on second reading House Bill 8083 or the Tax Reform package for Attracting Better and High-quality Opportunities or TRABAHO bill.
The House approved the bill in a plenary session presided by Deputy Speaker Sharon Garin. The bill aims to reduce the corporate income tax by two percent every 2 years beginning 2021 until 2029. By then, the CIT would have been brought down to 20 percent from 30 percent now.
Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was present when the voting was conducted. She earlier said the second package of the Tax Reform
Acceleration and Inclusion or TRAIN Law was a priority measure under her leadership.
Shell heeded the Energy department’s call to come up with more measures to help curb inflation.
The discount it offered is over and above the P1 to P2 per liter discount open to public utility vehicles under the memorandum of understanding of the department with Shell, Petron Corp., and Phoenix Petroleum Philippines Inc. signed on March 1.
“We thank Pilipinas Shell for continuously supporting our efforts to fight inflation. As commodity prices continue to rise, finding immediate remedial measures to help our consumers is of the utmost importance,” Cusi said.
The additional discount may be had in 446 Shell stations in the areas with a high jeepney density. These stations are strategically located in Metro Manila, North Luzon, South Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
Cusi is hoping other oil companies will follow suit.
“We will work together to find win-win solutions,” he said.
Shell said the discount was in lieu of reintroducing Euro 2 diesel fuels that may take three to six months to implement due to the necessary added infrastructure and facilities needed to adapt to the proposed fuel option.
It said Euro 2 may have “minimal to zero net benefit” given the additional cost to put the infrastructure needed, and “may pose potential health and environmental risks because of the higher sulfur content.”
Reverting to Euro 2 means reverting to fuel with 10 times more sulfur at 500 parts per million as against the much cleaner diesel that is 90 percent less sulfur with only 50 ppm.
“PSPC will continue to support the government through DOE in alleviating the plight of the motorists and the general public. We enjoin the motorist to visit our participating retail stations to avail of this special program,” Shell said. With Maricel Cruz