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PRESIDENT Arroyo on Monday ordered concerned agencies to
“devise” nonrevenue measures that would help ease
“worries and difficulties” over rising flour and fuel
prices, and the strong peso’s impact on overseas
Filipino workers and their families.
The
President issued the directives at the Regional Workshop
on the Establishment of National Human Rights
Institutions in Asia at the Traders Hotel, where she
reiterated her administration’s commitment to poverty
alleviation as part of its campaign to protect human
rights.
She
ordered the Department of Trade and Industry and the
Department of Agriculture to consult with industries,
retail associations, producers, distributors and
retailers on measures to moderate the prices of flour
and sugar, among them, “revenue-neutral tariff
adjustments similar to those being applied to oil.”
On May
12, 2006, the President signed Executive Order 527 which
was effective until November that year, providing for an
automatic tariff mechanism based on certain triggers
indexed to international oil prices that would cushion
the local economy against rising world oil prices
without affecting government revenues.
The
President wants the Department of Transportation and
Communications (DOTC) and the Department of Energy to
revive the revenue-neutral EO in view of high oil
prices, and ordered them to coordinate with public
utility operators on other possible assistance measures,
including more discount gas stations and “fast-tracking
and expansion of social services and benefits for the
public transport sector.”
Mrs.
Arroyo ordered the Department of Labor and Employment
(DOLE) and the National Economic and Development
Authority (Neda) “to assess the impact of the strong
peso on the remittances and families of overseas
Filipino workers, provide measures to moderate and cope
with it including lower remittance fees as the
Department of Finance and Bangko Sentral are working
on.”
OFWs
have been seeking government relief from the continued
strength of the peso, which is trading a little over P44
to $1, compared to P55 to the dollar just two years ago.
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