Pricey oil pushed BOC take to P 70.7B in March, up 23%

Expensive oil helped the Bureau of Customs (BOC) collect its highest monthly take on record, amounting to P70.7 billion in March.

In a statement on Monday, the BOC said the import duties and other taxes it collected last month not only rose 29 percent from P54.7 billion a year ago but also exceeded the P57.7-billion target by 23 percent.

From January to March, the BOC’s collection totaled P188.5 billion, up 26 percent from P149.2 billion during the first three months of last year. The BOC had been tasked to generate P679.2 billion in tax revenues this year—a goal which Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero had said would be achievable if imports grew by 10 percent this year, as the government had targeted.

Citing a report from its financial service, the BOC said 14 of the country’s 17 ports—Aparri, Batangas, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Clark, Davao, Iloilo, Limay, Manila International Container Port, Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Port of Manila, San Fernando, Subic and Zamboanga—achieved their respective collection goals for March.

Fuel usage on the rise

Vincent Philip Maronilla, assistant commissioner and spokesperson for the BOC, told the Inquirer that March collections from oil products— whose global prices skyrocketed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—were bigger by P4.5 billion compared to last year’s. The Philippines is a net oil importer, hence vulnerable to volatile international prices.

Maronilla said both the value and volume of imported oil products increased last month. Fuel usage was also on the rise amid further economic reopening. Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua last week noted that visits to transit stations in the country already surpassed prepandemic levels by 20 percent, while visits to workplaces were 15-percent higher.

Excess collections

Excess collections from the 12-percent value-added tax (VAT) slapped on oil will finance the additional dole outs to be given away to sectors most badly hit by expensive fuel. At an estimated average global oil price of $110 per barrel in 2022, the government expects to collect an additional P26 billion in VAT this year.

Last month, the government disbursed P3 billion in fuel subsidies—P2.5 billion to public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers, plus P500 million in discounts to agricultural producers, coming from agency budgets.

But as the initial tranche of cash aid had been deemed lacking, the government will grant another P2.5 billion to PUV drivers and a bigger P600 million to farmers and fisherfolk this month—these additional subsidies will come from the oil tax-collection windfall.

The government will also will squeeze dividends from state-run corporations to partly cover the financing requirements for the larger P500 per month (P6,000 for the entire year) instead of only P200 a month (P2,400 for the year) which President Duterte had ordered be distributed to the lower 50-percent income households amid high oil prices. INQ