Philippine President, Benigno Aquino III (PNoy), announced that he is holding back plans to buy a dream car till his term ends in 2016. A year back he got into a lot of flak for having purchased a second hand 2007 Porsche for his personal use and in the end he had to sell it.

Personally I think it was really a bad political move to have bought the Porsche because public officials are recommended to live austere lives commensurate to their salary. Although the palace defended that the Porsche was bought with the President’s own money it was still a point of attack for the President’s detractors. In politics it has always been a good practice to never give people a reason to speak ill of you, whether real or perceived. Project an image cleaner than clean as the saying goes.
Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri announced that he is introducing a bill that will provide incentives to manufacturers, sellers and importers of hybrid vehicles in the country.

Zubiri’s Senate Bill 3397 is titled “An Act Providing Incentives to the Manufacturer, Sale and Importation of Hybrid Vehicles, encourages public support for the development of the hybrid car industry in line with the government’s Alternative Fuels program”.
Read the rest of this entry »

Toyota Motor Philippines revealed that the price of the local variant of the Prius will cost a whopping P2.5 Million due to importation taxes.

The Prius is called a hybrid vehicle because it uses both a 1.8L gasoline engine and a nickel-metal hydride battery powered electric motor to propel the vehicle. When the batteries are fully charged it switches to the electric motor resulting in savings in gasoline.
Read the rest of this entry »

Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP) announced that they will begin importing their hybrid car, the Prius, next week. The selling price has yet to be determined but it currently retails for $22,000. Add some import taxes to that and the price could balloon further.

TMP has stated that the government needs to give incentives to hybrid importers and manufacturers in order to propagate the use of the low gasoline consumption vehicle. Recently the Department of Finance objected to the idea of granting additional perks to importers and manufacturers of hybrid vehicles stated in House Bill 2084.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Department of Finance (DOF) has objected to provisions in House Bill 2084 which grants tax incentives to manufacturers of hybrid vehicles. This is different from the perks already given to them by the Board of Investments (BOI) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

The HB 2084 gives exemptions from the payment of import duties, customs and tariff duties, excise, value-added and ad valorem taxes for those engaged in the manufacture or import of hybrid buses, including their parts and components.
Read the rest of this entry »