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THE latest increase in prices at the pump shows for the umpteenth
time the insensitivity of oil companies to the average Filipino’s
plight. The announcement—if we could call it that—was made close
to midnight, by which time most of us were already at home, winding
down after a long hard week at work. Needless to say, many of us
hardly had the energy to get up from bed or our couches and drive
all the way up to the nearest station to gas up.
That is, provided we were watching the news on
TV, something the average Filipino doesn’t do on a Friday night.
For many of us, a better way to spend our time while winding down is
to catch up on late-night movies or series on TV. This means that
many of us suffered a rude awakening the morning after.
This latest surprise from oil companies proves
that consumers cannot rely on the government to help us tide over
our current economic difficulties.
We can understand the government’s explanation
that the ongoing rise in crude prices is beyond its control. What we
can’t comprehend is its utter helplessness in the face of the oil
companies’ wanton disregard for consumers’ welfare.
The Department of Energy last year said it was
undertaking an audit of those companies’ books to determine if
their price adjustments were merited. After nearly a year of
successive price increases, we have yet to hear about the results of
that audit—if there was one to begin with.
Recently, the energy secretary repeated his
bluster, warning oil companies about their sudden price adjustments.
The latest increase in pump prices is a slap on the face,
diminishing whatever authority the energy department claims to have
over these firms.
In an honorable society like Japan, the energy
minister would have resigned in the face of such an insult. Alas, we
cannot talk about honor in this country, especially among people in
high office.
The government’s failure to redress
consumers’ complaints about the shoddy treatment we are getting
from oil companies should provide President Gloria Arroyo some hint
on how she should go about her planned cabinet revamp.
Beyond a revamp, the President should order a
review of the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation law’s mandate
with regards the Office of the Energy Secretary. The law provides
some measures the energy secretary can pursue to ensure that
consumers’ interests are protected during price increases.
Finally, the oil companies’ behavior should
warrant a legislative revisit of the law with a view to introducing
amendments aimed at ensuring those firms don’t gouge consumers
especially during trying times such as the present one.
By this time, or more than a decade after it was
passed, the law has served its purpose of introducing new investors
in the downstream oil industry and developing competition worthy of
the country’s original big three players. To date, the so-called
small players collectively account for about a fifth of the domestic
market.
In short, it is high time policy shifts focus
from developing a contestable market to ensuring that consumers’
interests are not waylaid by oil highwaymen.
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