Special body sought to track prices of oil products

TO PROTECT PUBLIC FROM PREDATORY PRICING

A member of the House of Representatives is seeking the creation of a special body to monitor the prices of petroleum products to protect the public from possible predatory pricing, or mispricing of pump prices by the oil companies.

In his letter to House Speaker Felciano “Sonny” Belmonte, Samar Rep. Ben Evardone said he is asking Congress to create a monitoring body to be placed under the Congressional Budget Policy Office (CBPO) to track the prices of oil products.

“The pricing of local fuel is something that the oil companies themselves determine based on metrics that they set, and with the pricing variables that are not shared with the general public,” Evardone said.

“When the oil companies raise pump prices of fuel and invoke market forces, our actions are limited to muted protests because we cannot contest their math. Frankly, we don’t have the tools to raise the issue of predatory pricing, if this takes place.”

Evardone noted while the movement in oil prices over the past two months has relatively been mild as it has not risen over $90 per barrel, “the price movements have been relentless.”

This, the solon claimed, is enough to justify the creation of a special oil price tracking group at the CBPO.

“I am proposing a step by which Congress, specifically the House of Representatives can protect the public from possible predatory pricing, or mispricing of pump prices by the oil companies for immense gains, by creating a special division that would monitor the global movement of crude oil, the delivery prices to Philippine refineries, the refining costs plus the trucking or shipping costs to local end-users so we could have a general idea on what should be the ideal pump costs (with the standard margins for the oil companies, of course),” Evardone said as he stressed it was well within the CBPO mandate, considering it has the trained economists and finance people who can crunch the numbers of the realistic pump prices for the general public.

The solon added based on the findings and studies of CBPO, Congress can then initiate legislations to amend the Oil Deregulation Law to protect the consumers.

“If necessary, Congress can even initiate immediate moves like the filing of cases against oil companies found to have exploited the volatile oil prices in the international market,” the Samar solon said.

“We should not be helpless in our efforts to protect the oil users from mispricing and overpricing of fuel products. Neither the Neda nor the DoE has taken firm and activist role in tracking down the realistic pump prices,” Evardone stressed. “In short, Congress can be the people’s watchdog against prices manipulations of oil companies.

Meanwhile, Zambales Rep. Ma. Milagors “Mitos” Magsaysay called on the government to institute measures that have a sustainable impact on the plight of the transportation sector in addition to the proposed implementation of the Pantawid Pasada Program (PPP) which will only be a stopgap remedy to the plight of public utility drivers.

She also called the 50 centavo rollback on oil products by oil firms a lame attempt to appease the sentiments of the transport groups, especially when oil giants will implement increases in the following days.

“The problem is that there seems to be a trend here. The government would ask these firms to implement rollbacks and they would concede, and but a few days later they will impose hikes that are double the amount they reduced, and the government cannot do anything about it because the law sides with the firms,” Magsaysay said.

“While the intentions behind the fuel subsidy program is to help the transport sector get through this difficult time, the implementation has been remiss in the past leading the transport sector not to trust that the government would keep its word on the matter,” Magsaysay said. “And besides, is the P450 million subsidy enough to cater to all the target beneficiaries and how long will it last?”

According to Magsaysay, the government through the Department of Energy (DoE) should have the capability to call a halt to these price hikes should they feel that the firms are going overboard in the prices of petroleum products in the market. However, the current law renders the government powerless to undertake such a move because of the freedom of the oil firms to impose increases that they see fit. –Charlie V. Manalo, Daily Tribune