A commuters group called for the government to focus on policies that can cater to the broader public amid the ongoing issue of rising fuel prices brought by tensions in the Middle East.

President and Founder of Lawyers for Commuters Safety and Protection Atty. Ariel Inton said that besides public utility vehicle drivers, commuters were also directly affected in the current struggle.

Inton claimed that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s initiative to preemptively suspend the provisional P1 fare increase for jeepneys and other transportation sectors for what the President said was the ‘greater good’ was merely ‘delaying the inevitable.’

He explained that it just forced more drivers deciding to temporarily garage their vehicles through what has been classified by transport groups as a ‘transport holiday’ leading to lesser options for the riding public.

The lawyer further expressed that though the government’s 50 percent discount for both the Light Rail Transit-Line 2 and Metro Rail Transit-Line 3 was a good initiative, it did not necessarily help people that use other forms of transportation.

Inton asserted that if the President was truly for the ‘greater good,’ he should look into legislative measures that can benefit everyone, starting with the suspension of the excise tax.

“If he really wants to help the greater good, suspend the excise tax on petroleum products,” he said in Filipino during an interview with a radio program this Monday morning.

The excise tax, commonly referred to as the ‘sin tax,’ was a tax implemented for goods or services that is added on top of the base cost and incorporated into the final retail price.

In terms of oil, lawmakers have said that the suspension of the excise could cut down fuel costs for products like diesel that are already set at over P100 per liter by as much as P10.

Aside from the excise tax, Inton called on Marcos to look into a possible repeal of the oil deregulation law as he said that it did not serve the purpose of its implementation.

“We have to review and probably look into the oil deregulation law because the intended purpose of serving the country did not happen, because petroleum companies still colluded with one another,” he said.

Oil deregulation was a law enacted in 1998 that sought to allow private companies to freely set their fuel prices without much government intervention.

However, Inton explained that the law was ineffective given that the Philippines did not dictate oil prices in the global market as it only made up a small percentage of consumption.