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WITH the
government’s apparent helplessness in controlling rising
domestic fuel prices, militant legislators are pushing
for the passage of three bills to give government the
teeth to loosen the tight grip of the foreign oil
oligopoly made up of Shell Philippines, Petron Corp. and
Caltex Inc.
Party-list Reps. Teodoro Casiño and Satur Ocampo of
Bayan Muna, Liza Maza and Luz Ilagan of Gabriela, and
Crispin Beltran of Anakpawis said House Bill (HB) 3029,
or an Act Regulating the Downstream Petroleum Industry
and for Other Related Purposes, HB 3030, an Act
Instituting Centralized Procurement of Petroleum in the
Country, and HB 3031, an Act Renationalizing Petron
Corp., will provide the people much-needed relief.
Filed on
November 6, these three bills, they said, “are bold and
concrete steps to address the problematic oil industry
squarely and regulate oil-price increases in the country
if immediately passed into law.”
HB 3029
will repeal the oil-deregulation law (RA 8479) that
allows oil companies to hike oil prices on their own and
HB 3030 will allow government to take advantage of
economies of scale through centralized oil procurement.
HB 3031 would revert Petron back to government control
to give it leverage in setting prices.
“We call
on consumers and various sectors of the public to
support these proposed measures that are tangible,
long-term solutions that will mitigate the impact of
skyrocketing oil prices,” the lawmakers said in a
statement.
They
criticized the Arroyo administration for “rendering the
Filipino people defenseless against the continued
oil-price increases” [that] “are pushing more and more
Filipinos into abject poverty.”
“The
Arroyo regime only puts up a show of blaming monopoly
oil companies and says it cannot stop oil prices from
skyrocketing. This shows that Arroyo is beholden to the
interests of the oil cartels and is not prepared to
address the energy crisis we are facing,” they added.
According to them, since the oil industry was
deregulated by the administration of then-President
Fidel Ramos in April 1996, oil companies have hiked pump
prices of all petroleum products by around 535 percent.
“To add
to the festering problem, oil companies and even
[President] Arroyo have already announced that fuel
prices will still go up by P4 a liter before Christmas,
and there may be more hikes to come in 2008, saying the
government cannot do anything outside of ineffective
measures such as an automatic tariff mechanism that does
not stop the price hikes nor ensure fair price
adjustments,” they said.
“If this
government wants to address this major problem
confronting the nation, it should immediately enact
House Bills 3029, 3030 and 3031 into law.”
The
group also cited an observation of the United Nations
that the Philippines is among the countries that are
most vulnerable to oil price shocks because it is
heavily dependent on imported oil. |
