Fuel, Food and Fear: Philippines Faces Impact of Iran War

Dante and Edna Largo have run a local cafe in east Manila for the last 26 years, selling breakfast and lunch to a devoted customer base from nearby homes, schools and offices.

“It is through this business that we were able to send our two sons to college,” Edna, 63, told IWPR.

But like many Filipinos, the Iran war has had a major impact on their income.

The Philippines relies heavily on the Middle East for crude oil, importing up to 98 per cent of the supplies from the region. In the immediate aftermath of the war which began in late February, the price for a 22-kilo liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder tank quickly doubled, from 1,500 Philippine pesos (25 US dollars) to 3,000 pesos (50 dollars). The Largos use three LPG tanks per week.

Even as a shaky ceasefire holds between Iran, the US and Israel, the prolonged crisis continues to impact on their revenue, which has already decreased by 30 per cent from a daily profit of 17,000 pesos (281 dollars) to 12,000 pesos (198 dollars).

“Nowadays, we put more capital, but earn less,” Edna said, adding that they are economising in other areas of their life too.

More and more Filipinos are hurting from the spreading impact of the US-Israel conflict with Iran, impacted not only from rising costs but also falling remittances from its large migrant workforce.

The Philippines was the first country to declare a national energy emergency as a response to the Iran crisis, with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr signing a year-long executive order on March 24, 2026 to ensure its supply of fuel, food medicines and other basic needs. He has also promised to explore alternative sources of energy, reviving talks with Beijing on joint gas exploration in the disputed South China Sea despite warnings over China’s refusal to recognise the 2016 Hague ruling that invalidated its rights over the area.

Meanwhile, the energy crisis is affecting a whole swathe of livelihoods. Josie, who works as a carer in Manila, told IWPR that her family in Negros Occidental province in the central Philippines were slowing down food production on their one-hectare farm because of increasing fertiliser costs.

The Philippines heavily relies on fertiliser imports from the Middle East, which normally pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which continues to be closed.

The prices of inorganic fertiliser urea, which Philippine farmers commonly use for rice and corn production, has increased from 1,500 pesos (25 dollars) to 2,400 pesos (39 dollars) per bag.

“We don’t want to take out loans from the government. It will further drive us down to poverty,” Josie said.

Among those hardest hit by uncertain oil supplies haver been public transport drivers, with gas prices more than doubling from three to seven US dollars per litre in late February the first weeks of the crisis.

Most buses, jeepneys, tricycles and taxis are privately owned and operated but charge government-regulated fares.

In mid-March, the government rolled out Marcos Jr announced one-time cash assistance of 250 dollars to public transport drivers in anticipation of rising costs of food and other basic supplies are. Jeepney drivers also began receiving ed a one-time fuel subsidy of 500 dollars for each (A MONTH?)unit from the transportation department. .

Mildred, 46, said that her family of four depended on her husband’s wages as a tricycle driver in eastern Manila. The extra income she made from running a small shop and working as a parttime housekeeper and cook was not enough to support them all.

He received cash assistance of 250 dollars after submitting required paperwork to the Department of Social Work and Development (DSWD), but such payments are due to end on May 20.

Now the family are pinning their hopes on the transportation department’s planned introduction of a fuel subsidy of 17 centavos per litre, for a maximum of 150 litres only, until the end of June 2026.

“We need to work harder to save for the tougher days ahead,” Mildred said.

Already cash-strapped before the Iran crisis impacted the country, low-income families are now forced to alter life further to cope with the rising costs.

“We now cook just once a day to cover all our meals until the evening,” laundry worker Lorna, 48, told IWPR. She explained that the 70 per cent increase of their 11-kilo cooking fuel tank - from 17 dollars to 90 dollars - has hurt them the most.

“We could have used that money to buy additional food and medicines,” said Lorna.

Lea, 55, a home maker who relies on her family’s home rental business, is also feeling the pinch. Until the Iran crisis hit, she told IWPR, she had managed to save up to 25 dollars a month for longer-term needs. Nothing was now left to put away.

“The goal now while uncertainty prevails is to save on costs as much as possible,” Lea said.

Repatriation

A total of 2.4 million Filipinos live and work in the Middle East, with the largest communities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Many were directly impacted when the Iran war began in late February. Two Filipinos - 32-year-old caregiver Mary Ann Velazquez de Vera and 29-year-old Lucille Jane Gerovich - died in Israel in Iranian missile strikes.

Seven Filipino seafarers were injured, three seriously, from an Iranian drone attack on their Malta-flagged container ship passing the Strait of Hormuz on May 5.

More than 9,000 Filipino migrant workers were repatriated from across the Middle East, although for most, leaving was not an option.

Jane, a 48-year-old Filipino housekeeper who has worked in Bahrain for the last 16 years, said that she had got used to air raid sirens blaring several times a day when Iran was hitting targets in countries across the Gulf.

“We are safe so far, but I now always have this fear,” she told IWPR.

But Jane, a single mother, said that she had not considered returning to the Philippines.

“Family comes first,” she said, explaining that her relatives in the northern Philippine province of Pangasinan relied on her monthly income of 650 US dollars to pay for bills and her daughter’s school fees.

“If I stay here, my family has food to eat and my aging parents have money to buy medicines,” she concluded.

Nonetheless, the Iran war meant significant disruption in cash remittances; for a month after the crisis began, money transfer facilities were suspended.

Last year, Filipino migrant workers in the Middle East remitted a total of 6.5 billion dollars to their families back home, or about 18 per cent of the total remittances from an estimated ten million Filipinos abroad.

“We must not lose hope,” Jane said. “We must continue praying that everything would go back to normal.”

Locations Philippines, Iran

Topics Conflict, Economy, Migrants