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Palace to use power against players’ no-roll back stance

Written by anyajulia on 13 October 2008

OIL industry players conveniently hiding under the protection of the oil deregulation law may have one problem coming, Malacañang has said it may be forced to use its power to protect the public interest.

This as oil companies remain deaf to the roll back clamor of consumers despite lowering of crude oil price in the international markets.

According to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Malacañang will exercise its power to protect public interest once the government gathered strong basis against oil companies that do not roll back prices and not willing to heed the clamor of the consumers.

Ermita made the assurance in the light of reports that the Senate is planning to pass a law that will impose tax on profits of oil companies that do not scale down prices amid the downtrend of pump prices in the world market.

Clipped to flex its muscled by the present deregulation law, Ermita admitted that the palace can’t dictate on oil companies, however he said government is still “appealing to them to lower their prices as pump prices of oil continue to go down in the world market”.

If there will be “unreasonability” on their part, then the government will have to take certain measures to protect the public interest,” Ermita said during his regular media briefing this week. He did not elaborate however how the government plans to do this.

Data from the Department of Energy showed that Dubai crude oil averages $89.25 per barrel since Monday, compared to last month’s average of $95.90 per barrel.

But despite this, he said the government would limit its actions in order to persuade oil firms to adjust their prices amid the global downtrend of oil prices.

For his part, Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said that under the present situation, only market forces can “force” oil firms, especially the big three, to scale down the prices of their products.

“Market forces will determine it. We will not stop on our call but we will not force them,” Dureza said in a radio interview Wednesday.

He noted that since small players in the oil industry were quick in readjusting their prices, it is up to the bigger players to follow suit or risk losing customers.

Dureza quoted Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes to have said that the deregulated nature of the fuel industry prevents the national government from taking drastic measures against oil firms that do not roll back prices. (PIA)

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