DESPITE mounting pressure from oil companies and business lobby groups, Sen. Joker Arroyo advised Malacañang on Wednesday to uphold Executive Order (EO) 839 banning oil-price hikes in calamity areas ravaged by recent typhoons.

Arguing that the Palace stands on solid legal ground in issuing the price-freeze directive, Senator Arroyo bewailed that “it is the height of callousness for foreign oil companies and their lackeys to continuously criticize without letup EO 839, which temporarily regulates the price of oil products.”

But he also lamented that “the problem with this government is that they don’t know how to respond even when they are right. It is as if they have such a guilty complex in whatever they do.”

According to the senator, the Constitution in clear language permits the Palace action. He cited Section 17, Article XII of the 1987 Constitution which provides that “in times of national emergency, when the public interest so requires, the State may, during the emergency and under reasonable terms prescribed by it, temporarily take over or direct the operation of any privately owned public utility or business affected by public interest.”

In a statement, Senator Arroyo pointed out that two devastating calamities have visited parts of the Philippines creating a national emergency of unthinkable proportions.

“The cost of oil has a devilish chain reaction on almost any product or transport,” he said. “The government did not take over the oil business as the Constitution permits. After all, they cannot run the business. It simply ordered the reduction of oil prices for the duration of the emergency. At some point, the reduced price would be lifted.”

He added: “Look at the picture. Oil companies are among the biggest money earners year after year. Their supporters say that oil is a deregulated industry and therefore, it cannot be subjected to price fixing. Oil companies maintain that they can’t sell their products at a price lower than what it costs them.”

Senator Arroyo conceded that this proposition would be correct in normal times. But in an emergency, he said, it is correct for the government to intervene as “failing that, the government fails the people.”

He explained that what the government, in essence, has asked is for the oil companies to take a loss (or) share the loss during the emergency. “After all, when the emergency is over and the restrictions are lifted, they can raise their prices back to what they want and resume their hefty profits and recover the losses they bore during the emergency.”