Every peso lost to bank fees is a peso taken from Filipino families already stretched thin by rising prices — that is the central argument driving House Majority Leader Sandro Marcos as he champions a resolution calling on financial institutions to roll back transaction charges across the board.
House Resolution No. 905, which Marcos authored and the House plenary adopted before Congress broke last month, urges banks, remittance centers, and financial technology companies to temporarily waive or cut fees on ATM withdrawals, online fund transfers, and overseas remittances. Interbank ATM withdrawals currently carry a PHP18 fee, while online transfers can cost as much as PHP25 per transaction — charges that compound quickly for workers who rely on digital banking to manage day-to-day expenses.
“Today, millions of Filipinos use ATMs, online banking, e-wallets, and fund transfer services just to pay bills, buy food, send money to family, or manage basic household needs. But each transaction comes with a cost – fee that may seem small individually, but collectively impose a real burden, especially during a time of rising prices,” the Ilocos Norte representative said.
The resolution ties its urgency to ongoing Middle East tensions that have driven up global fuel prices and, in turn, raised costs for transportation, electricity, and food. HR 905 cautions that staggered fuel price adjustments have not been enough to soften the blow, warning that the cumulative effect of price increases “will still be excessively prohibitive to every Filipino worker.”
OFW families are identified as a specific pressure point, with remittance fees eroding the value of money sent home from abroad before it even reaches the intended recipients. But Marcos has framed the resolution as broader in scope than an OFW measure alone.
“The adoption of House Resolution No. 905 is not only about helping our OFWs – it is about providing immediate, practical relief to every Filipino who relies on the banking and digital financial system in their daily lives,” he said.
With no near-term resolution to the Middle East crisis in sight, the resolution calls for financial institutions to treat temporary fee relief as an urgent economic intervention rather than a discretionary gesture.
