Inflation is a different story than that of our foreign exchange rate or the equivalent dollar value of our money. Very good examples are Korea and Japan. These countries have much lower dollar value of their currency as compared to Philippine peso but they are able to buy more with their money. We cannot say that they are going through bad inflation just because their money value with respect to forex rate is very low.

The soft drinks scenario is just one example to illustrate the effect of TRAIN but understanding the TRAIN impact should not just be limited to soft drinks.

As I mentioned on my post, TRAIN impacts increasing the excise taxes on petroleum products, automobiles and sweetened beverages. These three products - petroleum products, automobiles and sweetened beverages - are where our basic daily necessities revolve around. That means all our basic necessities will be impacted.

Take the case of petroleum products. Every time price of these products go high, our public utility vehicle drivers and operators demand for fare increase. So if taxes for petroleum products go high, it is only fair to expect the petroleum companies to increase their prices. That will in turn give our PUV operators and drivers the reason to demand for fare increase which will be additional burden to poor Juan and Pedro when salary increase is out of sight.

In a nutshell, it is a chain reaction that impacts almost everything. This is what I hope our fellow countrymen would understand. We can not say that "di bale, gasolina, inumin at mga sasakyan lang naman ang tataasan ng tax."