Senate Bill 2856 sponsored by Senator Ralph Recto calls for fiscal incentives to be given by the government to importers, manufacturers and users of Alternative Fuel Vehicles (AFV). In his sponsorship speech he pointed out the irony that Alternative Fuel Vehicles were much more expensive to buy than traditional fossil fuel powered vehicles. Which could be attributed to the high cost of the technology because of the low adoption rate (because of its high selling price) and because of the taxes imposed on the said vehicles which does not differentiate between traditional vehicles and AFV’s.

AFV’s were defined as those being powered by non-traditional fossil fuel sources such as electricity, natural gas, etc or those using hybrid technology which uses both electricity and gasoline to run.
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Juan Miguel Zubiri, the father of the Biofuel’s bill of the Philippines announced his resignation amidst controversy of cheating during the 2007 election wherein he was in a neck-and-neck race for the final slot in the Senate with rival Koko Pimintel.

As of now it is still unknown as to what will happen to the slot vacated by Migs Zubiri and the final result of his resignation as it is still being reviewed by the Senate.
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Canlaon Alco Green Industrial Corp (CAGIC) announced that they will put up a P5.192 Billion on a bioethanol processing plant in Bago, Negros Occidental.

The plant is projected to be operational by December 2012 and will produce 52.2 million liters of bioethanol per year. Aside from producing bioethanol for the transport sector in line with the biofuel law, the purified carbon dioxide by product of the plant will be sold to the local softdrink bottling companies.
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The Department of Energy announced that they were thinking of coming up with a base price for imported bioethanol and scrapping the 20% import tariff in order to prevent gasoline prices from going up too much.

Dept of Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said that:
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Petron announced that they were looking for more local bioethanol suppliers to execute supply agreements with in order to meet their target of compliance with the Philippine Biofuel Law which mandates 5% mixture of bioethanol in the gasoline they sell at their pumps. Current output shows that the local bioethanol producers can only meet about 38% (83 million liters) of the demand for bioethanol.

Petron currently has a supply agreement with San Carlos Bioenergy Inc. (SCBI), a local bioethanol processor with capacity of 125,000 li/day.
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Toyota Tsusho’s North American Region Group-Global Project Planning Development said that they were studying the feasibility of going into jatropha planting for biofuels with commercial farmer, Dole Philippines, that will comprise of 50~200 hectare lots in Davao City and General Santos in Mindanao. Dole will handle the agriculture part of the venture.
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