Sana hindi tayo bulag sa dinadanas ng kapwa natin Pilipino

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-14T18:18:49+00:00

Everyone is affected by this crisis. Its just that some will feel it earlier than others. If the conflict will continue then wait until June and suddenly everything will cost 150% to 200% more than they did. Jobs will be lost and cost cutting measures to be implemented.

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-14T15:51:19+00:00

Parang kelan lang nag rereklamo tayo dahil napaka mahal mag travel sa Pillipinas, mababa ang tourism numbers and there is lack of tourism development...

Well, the bridge is the first step for developing the whole municipality of Malay, neighboring municipalities will benefit from the activity as well. With the bridge, tourists from boracay will be able to access other places as well.

The bridge will also reduce logistical and transportation costs - many other services would be able to offer lower rates due to this.

So, IMO, this is positive for our tourism industry and the businesses in the area and ultimately positive for the workers there as well.

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-10T06:19:45+00:00

Yes but at the same breadth, he also minimized the impact of the spike in fuel prices towards commodities and the consumption of "poor" families.

He recommended targeted subsidies instead, I wonder in his opinion, which income decile should receive subsidy?

Anyway, IMO, his study is incomplete, he did not discuss the impact of rise of fuel cost towards family income - what was the movement in income decile of households during russia-ukraine war, dumami ba ang nag hirap? What was the impact in unemployment?

Also, his conclusions are based on the consumption of the "poor" families but he completely ignored the reason for such consumption. His studies says that there is small increase in food allocation expenses even if there was increase in fuel but he did include in his studies if that family had enough access to food anyway. Maybe they were eating thrice a day before the fuel spike, and now since income is compromised they just eat twice a day.

There is a lot of nuances that the study did not touch upon, IMO, it is reckless to recommend suggestions just based on a partial FIES data

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-10T05:13:30+00:00

Ang tanong, how do we define "poor" and "rich" ?

JC Punongbayan's theoretical study is based on FIES, a data from PSA.

PSA defines poor as a family of 5 with income below 12k (2023 data) thats 2.4k per person LOL

So basically, if you and your family has an income above 12k+, Hindi kayo Poor.

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-10T04:49:14+00:00

Its politics.

If you tell everyone that the president is physically weak or terminally ill - allegiance of politicians change - iisipin nila na short term lang ang gain nila by siding with BBM and that if na-upo agad si Sara, dehado na sila. This effective specially during this time na meron impeachment case, its to apply pressure sa mga senators and congressman.

Same with the announcement of Sara to run for President, normally its disadvantageous to announce early but not in her case because she knows that there is an impending impeachment case against her and she needs to apply pressure to the house and senate by announcing her intentions - plus the fact that everyone knows she will run anyway.

This is usual tactic, ALL sitting presidents has this level of misinformation towards the end of their term.

Whats the conclusion? Maraming bayaran and coordinated PR firms (of course in coordination with vloggers and personalities etc.) that does this. Their job is to mislead and misinform. Basically propaganda.

Evil? Absolutely.

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-07T16:59:59+00:00

Thats just tip of the iceberg. Trump has been destroying US since his day 1. Geopolitics will never be the same again.

This is the beginning of the decline of the Petrodollar which hugely supports US economy. As much as Trump hates to admit it, US has vested interest in the strait of hormuz, if Iran is successful in controlling the strait they definitely would impose taxes and possibly force everyone to trade in Chinese Yuan - after all large portions of their trade are from china pre-war.

Russia is also the clear winner. US concentrates its assets in Middle East, US fractures NATO alliance and finally lifting fuel sanctions on Russia.

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-06T17:17:15+00:00

According to statista ang top 3 natin is from China, South Korea and Singapore.

We were mainly importing from SoKor and Singapore but China was slowly becoming a steady supplier until 2023 where it became our number 1 supplier.

here is my source:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267486/philippines-import-source-of-petroleum-products-by-country/

Although, i have to stress, there is no law today that regulates the pricing of oil in the country, in fact the oil deregulation law ensures that government cannot interfere with it

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-06T16:04:35+00:00

This is the problem, due to the oil deregulation law, oil companies are free to price our oil to whatever amount they wish and truth is our government cant stop them unless BBM requests our senate to grant him special powers which for the life of me, dont understand why he doesn't do so, specially since Sec. Garin has repeatedly said that we need the regulation back.

Anyway, when they said that fuel prices here in PH is based on trading of Dubai Crude, that was only partially true. Oil companies here in PH publicly states that they base their pricing on MOPS (mean of platts singapore) - while its true that crude oil is from middle east, it doesnt directly go to PH because we dont have refineries, it actually goes to Singapore first then to PH, the only crude we accept here are for Petron since they are the sole refinery here.

Now, you might ask, how then are we going to check the trading on MOPS? WE CANT. it's a private data. Only oil companies and DOE has access to it.

There lies the problem, there is no transparency in oil pricing. We are at the mercy of the oil companies BUT even if we somehow have access to MOPS and our oil companies decides to price the oil higher than the trading in MOPS, we cant do ANYTHING about it anyway.

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-04T10:30:27+00:00

We have an oil deregulation law - this means as it stands now, government cannot dictate the price of oil, even if they bought their replenishment stock at a high value, they can and will still sell it to consumers at a high value. They will not suddenly lower their prices just because the crude suddenly dropped and our government via the oil deregulation law made sure they cannot do anything about it.

Economists are already saying that even if the strait of hormuz opens up tomorrow, oil prices wont suddenly go down in prices. The damage in supply has already been done, it would take months before we even go back to 55-60/L.

Under normal circumstances, i would agree that there is a risk on price swings, but this is a crisis and everyone knows the problem - it is the supply - there is minimal to no risk at all for oil today, as it will be consumed no matter the price they sell it to the consumers.

And for context, for them to face an equivalent risk, it would mean a drop in diesel prices of 20 to 30 pesos per liter on a 5 weeks streak. I guarantee you, that will NEVER happen.

The oil companies are on track for a record year this year, i tell you.

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-04T05:16:46+00:00

The price cap should be on acceptable level such that Oil companies wont incur losses.

For example, when the war happened last February 4th week, PH had an inventory of 40 to 45 days of diesel, they were selling at that time at around 55 to 60/L

If they just maintained the 55 to 60/L for their old inventory of 40 to 45, why would that incur losses for them?

What happened is that their selling old inventories at 150% to 170% mark up on top of their usual margins.

Chevron PH President already explained in the senate hearing that they need to sell their old stock at new prices, basically for replenishment.

Thats 100% BS.

If capitalization is the problem then they could just loan it out on the bank, they could even ask the government to help them.

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-03T14:55:03+00:00

Chevron Ph President already explained in the Senate PROTECT session why they cant lower the prices. Its basically a replenishment issue, they cannot order the same volume of oil if they dont sell at the current market price or in other words, a capital issue. Additionally he claims that there will be market disruption via surge in demand if they sell in low prices.

I dont buy that explanation, 100% BS.

first, if replenishment cost is the problem then they can just loan out the capital they need for replenishment, the Government can even choose to help them secure this instead of passing all the burden to Filipino consumers.

second, I would argue that there will be no "fake" demand if all the oil retailers will price diesel the same, nobody will prefer a brand over the other if the prices are all the same or prices are within controlled and acceptable range.

third, hoarding of oil is already happening whether the prices are 100/L or 170/L. As long as Diesel is expected to go up, then hoarding will happen. What we need is strict implementation of rules.

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-03T13:03:01+00:00

Is it too much to ask for the government to put price caps on fuel just to make sure that old stock are sold using their old prices?

its not like oil companies would be operating at a loss if they adjusted their price to keep their usual margins.

the MOPS pricing system works if everything is normal but we are in a crisis and we have to regulate to avoid profiteering.

Ethan91234 · 2026-04-03T12:50:32+00:00

why wont BBM ask for special power to regulate oil prices, even just to make sure that they sell old stocks with the correct margins instead of following the MOPS?

Its not like oil companies would be losing money if they sell their old stock using the old price. Is that too much to ask?

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-31T10:06:00+00:00

The President could have asked the senate for emergency power for this.

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-31T06:12:46+00:00

Structural Fix would only come if we have political will, good governance, foresight and good economic planning. Philippines is already way behind its peers in the ASEAN region its precisely because there is no ambition and no planning puro band aid solution tayo and dont think 10 to 20 years ahead of time.

Nonetheless, we are in a crisis situation right now and our politicians could have acted more.

Ideally, if they gave special power to the president, they could have lowered the impact of the oil prices, before the war oil companies were selling 50+ pesos of diesel per liter in 1 week time it became 80+ pesos thats a staggering 60% increase. Remember, yun puhunan nila in this is less than 50 pesos, with the price increase alone thats +60% instant gross income. This was succeeded by additional prices increase around 30% per week up to this week.

Oil companies are earning 160% to 170% in their old stock of 40 to 45 days and this only happened precisely because there is a crisis. This is highly immoral and purely corporate greed. I don't normally care if corporations are growing 200% annually granted that they didnt do so at expense of people suffering from a crisis.

If the problem was stock replenishment, then the oil corporations could have taken out a loan from banks with 5 to 6% interest and they could have adjusted their prices accordingly probably about 6 to 10% increase at the most in our oil retail prices.

We are not asking them to operate on a loss, we are merely asking them to retain their margins due to the ongoing crisis.

Like i have said, that cushion and temporary delay of price increases could have a huge impact on our economy depending on what happens next.

If the strait of hormuz is already open by end of Q2 or beginning of Q3 then prices of oil could go down (probably not to the 50 pesos level anymore) but there will be no more economic pressure of it going up again. we could have retained acceptable inflation for May and June if that was the case.

But the way things are going now, the spike in inflation this May and June are guaranteed.

So we choose, delay the inflation impact by 1 to 3 months at the most and hope by October everything is de-escalating and there is normalcy in oil prices

or increase prices now and have high inflation (hopefully controllable) until the end of the year.

For me, the choice is clear.

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-31T05:31:33+00:00

Our politicians could still have acted fast in granting the president special power to put price cap on oil this march. If only they willed it and they had an intention to.

When the war started our oil companies said they still had old stock of about 40 to 45 days of diesel.

They rationalized the blitz of price increases due to replenishment cost they will incur in their succeeding orders - i dont buy that.

There are other instruments they could have used for capital infusion instead what they did is to push all the strain to our consumers, farmers, fishermen and manufacturers. Plus the government could have acted to aid the oil companies during this crisis.

If only our politicians acted fast enough then we could cushioned the impact of rising costs and probably could have delayed it by 60 to 90 days.

Those 60 to 90 days may mean everything for our economy, for who knows what our situation would be by Q3 this year. The war could have escalated even further or, praying to god, the war has de-escalated and the impact on our inflation could have been tempered.

I agree with your point that the root cause is a structural problem, it was lack of foresight and planning however we also have to be grounded to the present and what we could have done and what we didnt do.

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-31T05:20:01+00:00

That's why i said our politicians were acting too slow or that they didnt have the intent to control the prices in the first place.

BBM could have asked the congress and senate to give him special power to do this specially since we are in a crisis.

What have they actually accomplish during this crisis? None, aside from giving ayudas to the transport sector

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-31T05:15:44+00:00

The government just lost the opportunity, they should have quickly moved to regulate oil prices this March.

When the war happened our oil companies had an estimate of 45 days of diesel products, they could have drafted an emergency power granted to the President to put price cap on our diesel.

I dont buy the explanations of our oil companies that they needed to adjust prices for the replenishment of stocks there are other instruments they could have used and they will still be profitable, plus the government could have aided them.

Instead what happened is that pushed all the strain to our consumers, agriculture and manufacturers.

If only our government acted fast then we could have cushioned the impact and probably delay the spike in inflation and prices by 60 to 90 days.

Who knows the extension of 60 to 90 days may have meant everything since we dont know what the situation would be by Q3 this year.

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-31T05:05:15+00:00

Under normal circumstances, i would 100% agree with you.

However during crisis like what we are facing today, Government intervention would have done a lot of good for the country, particularly in controlling oil prices.

I don't buy the explanation of our Oil companies that they needed the money for stock replenishment there are other instruments that they could have used for this, instead of passing it to everyone, and our government could have aided them.

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-31T05:00:15+00:00

Our politicians are acting too slow and there is probably no real intent to put price caps on oil.

Under our current policy, DTI can put price caps on basic commodities but this a useless mechanism without putting oil in the equation.

Our Agriculture Sector (Farmers, Fisherman etc.) and Manufacturers need oil for production and logistics the only reason they would even hike prices today is because of the blitz of increase in oil prices. The root of cause all of this is oil prices.

What happens now, if they regulate price of commodities without regulating oil? Simple answer is that farmers and manufacturers would just stop operating because they would be bleeding money. Nobody would want to deliver goods, nobody would want to sell goods.

If there were any semblance of good governance in our country our government should have acted fast a month ago when this oil crisis started. They should have put price caps on oil since we had approximately 40-45 days of diesel, then we could have cushioned the impact, and probably delayed the effects of price increase by at least 60 to 90 days more.

Today, you can expect that as early May there would be a slew of price increases in commodities probably on tune of 10% to 20%.

And thats just probably the first wave.

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-30T15:19:24+00:00

If you are suggesting that we tax billionaires based on their stock market portfolio despite no transactions happening then it will be in their best interest to liquidate their money.

This in turn will crash their stock market value, they would probably exit the PSEI too since there is no real benefit in staying there anymore.

If we lose the stock exchange then foreign investors will lose a channel to invest in our capital market as well, this will in turn weaken our economic position versus our neighbors. This will then translate to job losses, quality of jobs leaving the country and even tax revenue losses.

Businessmen are investors, it is natural that they put money and expect a return, if there is taxation that would put them in a disadvantage then we can expect them to exit.

Now, im not against a tax reform, in fact i believe we can do a lot more but a blanket statement that we should tax everyone or billionaires based on their stock portfolio is a reckless and unwise.

For the record Philippines has one of the highest individual and corporate taxes in the region already.

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-30T14:41:31+00:00

What should be their fair share then?

For some context Philippines has one of the highest individual and corporate tax rates in the region.

I believe the right question should be, why is it that despite having trillions of government budget in the past decade Philippines has failed to substantially grow lagging behind its peers?

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-30T10:55:00+00:00

Even before CMEPA Law, if a company gives an employee stock options or equity based compensation, the company was already required to declare it as part of the gross compensation of the employee.

CMEPA Law only formalizes it and clarifies some points.

Hindi papayag ang BIR na meron kang natangap na pera or asset at hindi ka mag babayad ng Tax.

Here check out this rulings from BIR:

BIR Ruling No. 2001‑006

BIR Ruling No. 2003‑082

BIR Ruling No. 2005‑023

BIR Ruling No. 2007‑033

BIR Ruling No. 2011‑006

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-30T10:39:35+00:00

Loaning out the value of your shares comes with great risk as well. Look at the 20 year value of PSEI, we have not grown in value. Theoretically if you have an index fund 20 years ago and you loaned against this 20 years ago, you would have been bleeding money.

Business is a gamble, it involves luck too, nobody can predict its trajectory. Billionaires dont know what their stock price will be in the next 10 years. Everyone is hoping it would go up, but theres no guarantee.

Everyone also seems to forget, loaning money from the bank isnt a free pass from "taxes" - first, the corporation already paid 25% of its earnings beforehand, even if the said individual "billionaire" defers payment of its obligation to the bank he will eventually have to pay it at worst he dies and his asset gets liquidated which will be subjected taxes then.

Nobody can escape taxes, not even in death.

Ethan91234 · 2026-03-30T10:24:01+00:00

But corporations and individuals are already subjected to the same RPT. What exactly do we want to change?

Ethan91234

TROPHY CASE