Wazzup Pilipinas!?
Today, the President will stand before the halls of Congress to deliver his fifth State of the Nation Address. He will speak of progress. He will marshal columns of statistics. He will paint a meticulous, glowing portrait of a nation marching steadily forward into prosperity.
Outside the plenary gates, however, the real numbers are telling a much harsher, louder story—one written in red ink and flashing alarm bells.
A Record Fall: The ₱61.847 Reality Check
Just days before the gavel falls for the SONA, the Philippine peso crossed a historic, ominous threshold, crashing to a fresh, unmitigated all-time low of ₱61.847 to the dollar.
This was not a gentle slide or a predictable market drift. It is a structural collapse. For an import-dependent economy like the Philippines—which buys virtually all of its fuel priced in U.S. dollars and benchmarked against the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS)—a bleeding currency doesn't just mirror economic friction; it acts as a massive megaphone for it. Every single barrel of crude costs drastically more pesos to secure simply because the peso itself has been hollowed out.
And the citizens are paying for it at the absolute worst possible time.
The Arithmetic of Agony
Look at what happened at the pumps last Tuesday, July 21:
Diesel spiked by an staggering ₱10.68 per liter.
Kerosene shot up by ₱11.77 per liter.
Gasoline climbed by ₱3.65 per liter.
Year-to-date, the net surge is barrelling toward an eye-watering ₱50 per liter for gasoline and roughly ₱47 for diesel. Not over the span of a decade—for this year alone.
Yet, even as commuters brace for yet another round of punishing weekly adjustments, a quiet, mechanical process is happening behind closed doors at the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
Every single time the pump price ticks upward, the national treasury wins. Automatically. Without a single tanker to finance, without a meter of pipeline to maintain, and without a single retail customer to retain.
The VAT Harvest: Twelve percent (12%) of the total, bloated pump price is scooped up by the government as Value-Added Tax. As the base price climbs, the government’s absolute peso take scales right along with it.
The Excise Layers: Stacked on top of that are the fixed excise taxes mandated by the TRAIN Law, resting comfortably on a price floor that keeps rising higher and higher.
No one denies that high global energy prices carry heavy political fallout—they fuel broader inflation, choke logistics, and strain public transport subsidies. But the mechanical, cold reality remains: the government is a percentage partner in every single drop of fuel you buy, and that partnership just grew dangerously lucrative.
The Power That Sits Idle
This brings us to the core contradiction of the modern Philippine energy crisis.
We do not lack the tools to fight this. Republic Act No. 12316 explicitly grants the President the emergency power to temporarily suspend or reduce fuel excise taxes when global crude prices sustain a qualifying threshold (peached to an average Dubai crude price hitting or exceeding $80 per barrel over a designated period). That threshold has been shattered. The legal mechanism exists, fully operational and written into black-letter law. It requires a recommendation from the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC), applies cleanly to incoming imports, and possesses a clear expiration timeline.
The machinery is right there, idling. The only thing missing is the political will to flip the switch.
Instead, what do we get? Routine threats of "show-cause orders" directed at local gas station attendants, endless inter-agency task forces, and empty promises to "closely monitor" oil cartels.
Two Years Left
As the administration enters its penultimate SONA with just two years remaining on the clock, the disconnect between rhetoric and reality has never been wider.
A government that quietly fattens its coffers via percentage-based VAT every time geopolitical tensions flare in the Middle East or the peso takes a beating harbors a dangerous, systemic incentive to let prices ride high. There are no press releases for these automated windfalls. Just larger collections deposited seamlessly into state accounts while everyday Filipinos try to figure out how to afford tomorrow's commute.
Today, the speech inside the halls of Congress will be grand, polished, and carefully curated.
But the fuel pump doesn’t care about rhetoric. The plunging peso doesn't care about applause lines.
The question is: Will we?
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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