FINANCE Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said sustaining the fuel-marking program will be included in the list of their recommended measures for the next economic team as it helped beef up revenues for the government.
Dominguez said he believes the fuel marking program should be continued by the incoming administration.
The finance chief said continuing the fuel marking program will “absolutely” be part of the fiscal consolidation plan that they are preparing for the next administration.
Since the fuel marking program was implemented in September 2019, the government has so far collected P429.77 billion as of mid-May this year, based on the infographics shared by Dominguez to reporters.
In the same period, the government marked 41.33 billion liters of fuel with paid excise taxes.
Bulk of the total volume marked was diesel at 60.69 percent, followed by gasoline and kerosene with 38.8 percent and 0.51 percent, respectively.
Most of the marked fuel was in Luzon with 73.66 percent of the total. Trailing Luzon is Mindanao (20.91 percent) and Visayas (5.43 percent).
There are now 28 petroleum companies participating in the fuel marking program.
Topping the list of participating petroleum companies is still Petron Corp. with 10.12 billion liters of marked fuel, equivalent to almost one-fourth of the total.
Trailing Petron in the list of 25 participating companies are: Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. (17.85 percent); Unioil Petroleum Philippines Inc. (10.17 percent); Insular Oil Corp. (8.63 percent); and, Seaoil Philippines Inc. (8.18 percent).
The fuel-marking program was launched with the aim of halting illegal importation, manufacturing, and other fraudulent activities relating to the use and sale of petroleum products in the country.
Fuel marking makes use of a unique chemical marker that can be embedded at a molecular level in petroleum products—gasoline, diesel and kerosene—thereby enabling authorities to test, identify and distinguish petroleum products with paid excise taxes.