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Already
struggling with weak purchasing power, poor families may
have to work double time to find ways to meet their
basic needs once the price of Dubai crude reaches $200
per barrel.
In a
simulation done by the National Economic and Development
Authority (Neda), the government projected that poor
families belonging to the first- to the fifth-income
decile may have to scrounge around for more funds to buy
food and pay for basic services such as transportation.
If the
price of Dubai crude oil reaches and stays at $200,
adjustments by industries and utilities will require
that the poorest families cough up an additional P2,269
to meet their basic needs.
“Looking
at the impact on households, the increase in oil price
would primarily affect expenditures on fuel,
transportation cost and other household expenditures, in
general,” Neda Acting Director General Augusto Santos
said in a presentation of the simulation to the
Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC).
Santos
added that those families belonging to the sixth decile,
or middle-income families, will also become vulnerable
to experiencing a shortage in their incomes if oil
prices go beyond $200 per barrel.
The
acting Neda chief said their incomes will no longer be
able to afford the cost of their usual expenses since
their average annual expenditure under a $200-per-barrel
oil-price regime is expected to increase by as much as
P7,765.
The
National Statistics Office (NSO) said income decile is
the distribution of families into 10 groups in terms of
annual family income. The first decile has the lowest
income and the 10th decile has the highest income.
Based on
the simulation,
Santos
said that if Dubai crude reaches $200 per barrel,
families belonging to the second and third deciles, or
those who also make up the bottom 30 percent of Filipino
families, will have to look for an additional P3,380 and
P4,268 on top of their annual incomes to meet their
basic needs.
Families
in the fourth and fifth income deciles will need an
additional P5,191 and P6,336 to finance their basic
annual needs.
The
Department of Energy earlier said that Dubai crude
prices averaged $117.57 a barrel in May from an average
of $103.41 a barrel in April. Dubai crude already hit an
all-time-high price of $128.98 a barrel last May 22.
The
increase in oil prices in the international market has
recently pushed oil companies in the
Philippines
to increase gasoline prices by P1.50 per liter over the
weekend and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) prices by
P3.50 per tank.
Earlier,
the Neda blamed high commodity prices for the slowdown
in the country’s economic growth. High inflation has
pegged gross domestic product in the first quarter to a
weak 5.2 percent.
This hit
the lower end of the NEDA projection for the first
quarter of within the range of 5.2 percent to 6.2
percent. |
