CONGRESS HANDS MARCOS POWER TO SUSPEND FUEL EXCISE TAX — HE SAYS HE WILL WATCH THE TRENDS FIRST

P23.90 per liter. That is how much diesel prices jumped in a single week at Shell stations during the week of March 17. Gasoline climbed another P16.60 per liter at the same stations. Petron, Seaoil, Flying V, and Total followed with their own sharp hikes within days of each other.

Against that backdrop, Congress finished its legislative sprint and handed President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. something he himself had asked for: the power to suspend or reduce fuel excise taxes by executive order alone.

The bill now sits on his desk, unsigned.

HOW IT GOT THERE IN ONE WEEK

The House passed its version, House Bill No. 8418, on March 16 — 247 in favor, 3 against, with only the Makabayan bloc dissenting. The Senate passed its own version, Senate Bill No. 1982, on March 17 by a 17-0 unanimous vote.

Normally, two different versions mean a Bicameral Conference Committee. But March 18 was the last session day before Congress' six-week summer recess. There was no time for that.

So Deputy Majority Leader Luigi Villafuerte rose in plenary that Wednesday and moved that the House adopt the Senate version outright, bypassing the bicam entirely. Deputy Speaker David Suarez, who was presiding, heard no objections and carried the motion.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III confirmed what that meant: the enrolled copy would go directly to the President. Rep. Miro Quimbo, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, put it plainly — only Marcos' signature now stands between this bill and the statute books.

The bill had been certified urgent by Marcos in a letter to Speaker Faustino Dy III dated March 12. The entire process, from certification to final passage, ran less than a week.

WHAT THE POWER ACTUALLY COVERS

If signed, the law lets Marcos suspend or reduce excise taxes on petroleum products — fully or partially, for specific products or all of them — for up to three months per exercise, extendable if crude prices stay elevated. The authority runs until December 31, 2028 and shuts off automatically when Dubai crude falls back below $80 per barrel.

The trigger: Dubai crude oil, based on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), must average $80 or more per barrel for the one month immediately preceding the issuance of an order. Dubai crude breached $80 on March 5. Under the law's own terms, that threshold has already been met.

The cost of using the power is what gives the Department of Finance pause. Finance Undersecretary Karlo Fermin Adriano testified before House Ways and Means that suspending the excise tax from May through December 2026 would cost the government P136 billion — P121.4 billion in foregone excise tax plus P14.6 billion in reduced VAT. That is roughly 0.45 percent of GDP.

Senator Pia Cayetano, who sponsored the bill in the Senate and chairs the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, estimated a full suspension would reduce pump prices by P11.20 per liter on gasoline and P6.72 per liter on diesel. She also noted a 30-to-45-day lag before those savings reach consumers, because oil companies must work through existing inventory bought at taxed prices before the relief shows up at the pump.

THE GLOBAL CONTEXT DRIVING ALL OF THIS

The International Energy Agency warned in March that the Middle East war has created the largest oil supply disruption in history. The conflict escalated on February 27 following joint US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran under an operation called Epic Fury. Iran's counterattacks targeted Gulf energy infrastructure, squeezing flows through the Strait of Hormuz and pushing Brent crude to $119 per barrel on March 19 before it settled around $105.

The Philippines absorbed that shock directly. Diesel prices in some areas had already climbed to P114 per liter by mid-March. The DOE warned worse was possible.

Marcos had already ordered a four-day workweek for executive branch offices starting March 9 as an energy conservation measure. On March 18 — the same day the House adopted the final bill — he also suspended planned fare hikes for jeepneys, buses, and ride-hailing vehicles that were set to take effect the next day, citing the international crisis. Cash assistance for tricycle drivers was already in distribution.

WHETHER HE WILL ACTUALLY USE IT

Congress handed Marcos the tool. The prices are at record levels. The legal trigger is already satisfied.

And yet.

Marcos certified the bill as urgent. He pushed Congress to move fast. Congress delivered before going on six-week break. Then reporters asked him about signing it on March 18, the day it crossed the finish line, and he said: "We will observe. It depends on the trends."

He added that he did not know how long the surge would last or what its full effects would be, and called the calculation "very complicated." He said it was "all speculation."

There are two steps. Signing the law is the first. Actually issuing an order to suspend the tax is the second. As of March 18, Marcos had not committed to a timeline on either.

His caution has some logic. The P136 billion revenue cost is real. The 30-to-45-day lag means consumers will not feel any relief for over a month even after he acts. And oil prices are volatile — Brent had already dropped from $119 to around $105 within days.

But the legal conditions are in place. Congress is on break until May. There is no pressure coming from that direction. What happens next is entirely Marcos' call — and his record on this particular kind of decision does not exactly signal urgency.