Yet, in a hearing sponsored by the Department of Energy, Shell country chairman Edgar Chua said that they could not be expected to cover the shortfall if the others stop importing. “We will cover our normal markets,” he said. Petron president Eric O. Recto said in the same hearing that they could only service a 5-10 percent increase in demand, even if they have no problem in continuing to import.

Apparently, big and small oil companies are united in protecting their profit margin. With EO 839 they were at pains to sell oil as usual when they could have been profiting more if they weren’t barred from jacking up oil prices at will. (Before typhoon Ondoy struck, oil prices in the Philippines were reportedly overpriced by as much as P5 to P8 per liter. Now, on top of this, oil products are reportedly further overpriced by more than P9 in Visayas and Mindanao.)

But amid the oil companies’ woeful tales of losses and threats of shortages, Shell admitted the losses they were supposed to be incurring under the price caps were just “mathematical estimates.”

“There is no looming oil shortage, only lesser superprofits for the oil cartel,” said Franchie Buhayan, spokesperson for Anakpawis in Davao City.

The big oil firms are not being driven to any real financial difficulties or bankruptcy, said Ibon Foundation. “They have over a decade of overpricing and accumulated super-profits and are just muscle-flexing now to show that they will not tolerate encroachment into their monopoly power over the industry.”

Repeal the Oil Deregulation Law

The stage appears set now for the eventual lifting of the EO 839. Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera quipped that the sun is out shining now. The DOE-DOJ Task Force, after impressing Raul Concepcion that finally, after 11 years, it seems poised to step up and perform its regulatory task, only came out with recommendations two days later to lift the oil-price caps.

Once the EO 839 is lifted, oil-price hikes amounting from P3 to P5 await Filipinos, even as there are still no satisfactory explanations for the oil companies’ overpricing and huge gaps in pricing between Philippine islands.

“When we hold transport strikes the government threatens to revoke our franchises. But when the Big 3 mouths all sort of worse economic sabotage, the government doesn’t lift a finger,” San Mateo of Piston said in their protest caravan. “The oil companies can get away with all that because the oil industry remains deregulated, a tragedy that is left untouched by Gloria Arroyo’s Executive Order 839.”

To confront the Big 3‘s “cartel manipulation of oil supply” and “greedy overpricing,” there must be a nationwide oil-price control and “we must repeal immediately the Oil Deregulation Law,” Anakpawis said in their post-convention rally this week. Additionally, Piston proposed a system of “centralized procurement of petroleum products” coupled with the government reacquiring Petron. All these would free the Filipinos from the clutch of the Big 3, Piston said. This way, explained San Mateo, “we can be sure there would be no more artificial shortage even as the prices of oil are being managed and controlled.” (Bulatlat.com)

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