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NOW that
the group of John Gokongwei has expressed serious
interest to acquire the 40-percent stake of Philippine
National Oil Co. (PNOC) in Petron, expect the
last-minute deliberations on the fate of the
government’s role in the local oil industry to take a
more interesting turn.
The
interest shown by JG Summit, which reportedly is eyeing
the Petron stake as a logical fit with its
petrochemicals business, at least boosts confidence that
if they choose to, Filipinos can opt for having greater
control of their economic life and be resigned to a
no-options scenario where they are held perennially
hostage to foreign—worse, anonymous, given how hedge
funds operate—interests, especially in petroleum just
when global crude prices are shooting through the roof.
The
interest also shown by Morgan Stanley in the other 40
percent that Saudi Aramco plans to sell to the
United Kingdom’s
Ashmore Group is yet another clear indication of the
significance of having a stake in such a vital industry
in these times.
Oil this
week reached $120 a barrel once more in the world
market, and on Thursday it touched $123 on supply
concerns as disruptions continue in key oil-producing
areas like
Nigeria,
and demand keeps rising as the United States enters peak
season, among others.
Back
home, Filipinos, meanwhile, can barely cope each day
with the soaring prices of fuel and electricity—a
situation that expectedly would continue or even worsen
throughout the year and the next, as expert projections
see supply concerns continuing to weigh on the trading
of oil. A recent international study had predicted that
oil would reach $200/barrel by 2010.
We are
not alone in this misery, by the way. On Wednesday
night, foreign TV news reported that hundreds of
US
households daily are seeing their electricity supplies
cut off, and Americans, now starting to feel the effects
of a de facto recession, report increasing difficulty
meeting their energy bills at home. Gasoline theft is
also on the rise in parts of the United States, as the
per-gallon price of fuel has reached historic highs. US
experts don’t see immediate relief in sight, given the
fact that peak season at summer is further driving up
demand; and soon, there’s the onset of the so-called
hurricane season in the United States to contend with,
sending chilling reminders of how Katrina wrought havoc
on oil-producing sites in the Gulf of Mexico.
The
complaints of American households find echoes in the
responses of Filipino households to the latest IBON
survey, as published in this paper’s front page on
Thursday, showing an increase in the percentage of
families reporting extreme difficulty in paying for
their transportation, food and other basic needs in
April. At least seven out of 10 households interviewed
reported such fiscal agony.
It is
clear, though, that for all its vaunted focus on
biofuels and its 10-year-long promise to encourage
renewable energy, the fruits of that will take time, and
meanwhile the government still needs to keep, nay, even
increase, its foothold in the petroleum sector; or, at
the very least, find itself a private-sector partner
that appreciates why Filipinos cannot afford to have
such a vital part of their economic life turned over to
anonymous “vulture capitalists”—as critics in the Senate
put it—that would treat the erstwhile PNOC shares as
nothing more than goods to be traded for the highest
value when the opportunity arises.
To
recall, the concern raised recently over the announced
plan of Saudi Aramco to sell its 40-percent stake in
Petron to the UK-based Ashmore group had painfully
resurfaced the anxieties first aired when the Ramos
administration decided to sell the 40 percent of Petron
to Saudi Aramco in 1994. The Ramos administration had
justified the sale by saying it would ensure a steady,
affordable supply of oil to the
Philippines
whatever happens because of the strategic partnership
with the Saudis. That guarantee, however, is in peril,
as noted in an editorial here earlier, because the
supply agreement entered into by PNOC and Aramco is
effectively scuttled with the impending sale.
Today,
the ball is in PNOC’s court, and it is hoped that it
rises to the challenge of seeking the Filipinos’ highest
interest, despite the limited time. It only has until
May 12 to decide whether to exercise the right of first
refusal over the Aramco shares being sold to Ashmore.
Gloria Razon y Gonzalez
AS far
as we know, the name of the chief of the National Police
in this country is Avelino Razon Jr., and the Justice
secretary, Raul Gonzalez. So it is a trifle upsetting to
keep seeing the President and Commander in Chief
continue to bear down on the Department of Justice and
the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), like some
super- cop chief, just to drive home the message that
suspected rice hoarders and profiteers will be punished.
As
pointed out earlier, GMA skates on thin legal ice—and
puts the justice system in the same boat by her
insistence on making highly publicized visits to the NBI
and Customs, and publicly berating officials for what
she considers their slowness in prosecuting the
suspects. A week ago she was reported to have asked
Justice Secretary Gonzalez whether the law really
requires the government to give a particular set of
suspects extension time to file a motion, impatient as
she was to see them jailed—and perhaps, do another
police perp walk? Bureaucrats with lesser spine would
have been rattled, and it’s just as well that Mr.
Gonzalez explained to her that they needed to follow the
reglamentary period for the legal processes, as any
short-circuiting could doom the government’s case and
set the suspects free.
The
President, it is obvious, is painfully aware of the
political time bomb that is the rice fiasco, but she
cannot win this war by continuing to act like some super
cop. Worse, she could even risk stampeding cases and
hurting the innocent while letting the real culprits go
free.
Surely,
that is not her intent. |
