PROADMINISTRATION legislators demanded oil companies on Tuesday to dramatically reduce prices of petroleum products immediately, and warned them against exploiting the decrease of crude price in the world market.
At the same time Liberal Party Rep. Ben Evardone of Eastern Samar said the Department of Energy (DOE) should be more forceful in dispensing its power to compel these companies to adjust their prices to conform with world oil prices.
“Light sweet crude this morning [Tuesday] is just $77 per barrel but local diesel is still P44 when the world crude was $99. The huge gap between the price of crude and prices of local petroleum products is an insult and a big injustice to the Filipino people,” said Evardone.
“We cannot allow these oil companies to exploit the low price of oil in the world market to the detriment of consumers. How come these oil companies are very quick to increase their prices every time prices of crude increase?” he added.
Evardone’s party-mate Rep. Winston Castelo of Quezon City also expressed dismay over the refusal of local oil firms to rollback prices.
“While they raise their petroleum prices at the slightest indication of an increase in the world market, domestic oil firms have been very slow to rollback their prices when world oil prices decline steadily,” Castelo said.
Castelo said local oil firms, especially the so-called Big 3—Petron, Pilipinas Shell and Chevron—should lower their petroleum products by at least P5 since Brent crude-oil prices have plunged to below P99 per barrel in the world market from a high of $127 per barrel in April last year. Also, US crude oil has reached $77 per barrel.
Citing reports, Castelo said local independent petroleum producers, have lowered their pump price of petroleum products by an average of 50 centavos to P1 “but this was an initiative that has yet to be emulated by the three biggest local oil firms.”
At the rate prices of crude oil have been declining in the world market, Castelo said the oil price rollback should be a minimum of P5 per liter insisting that “this is the realistic level.”
He urged local oil producers to follow the law and acknowledge the market dynamics.
According to Castelo, failure to acknowledge market forces virtually renders the oil deregulation law meaningless, allowing domestic oil firms to become “greedy” in amassing more profits at the expense of Filipino consumers.
Meanwhile, Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiño vowed to grill DOE officials for the continuing increases in oil-and-power rates in the country.
There looms another power hike of P0.08 per kilowatt hour this month supposedly due to the increase in generation cost.
“Why is it that whenever there are oil and power rate increases it is the DOE that is always in the forefront in justifying them? Who are their bosses anyway? Is it the Big 3, Meralco or the Filipino people?”asked Casiño.
