Research group IBON\nsaid that the Department of Energy (DOE) circular ordering oil companies to\nunbundle prices is a welcome and overdue measure for greater transparency to help\nprevent overpricing of oil products. However, the government must have the\npolitical will to implement this and the involvement of the public and consumer\ngroups must be ensured, said IBON.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last May 2019, DOE\nSecretary Cusi signed Department Order Circular No. DC2019-05-0008 or the\n\u201cRevised Guidelines for the Monitoring of Prices in the Sale of Petroleum\nProducts by the Downstream Oil Industry in the Philippines\u201d. The circular aims\nto make oil price rollbacks or hikes more transparent as the detailed breakdown\nof the changes is shown. The unbundling of oil prices is expected to take\neffect in July. However, private oil companies filed a temporary restraining\norder (TRO) against the DOE Circular, arguing that it is against fostering\nmarket driven competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON said that\nunbundling will allow consumers to see the reasons behind price movement such\nas the international content, taxes and duties, biofuel cost, and oil company\ntake components. The government and the public will be in a better position to\nassess price movements because the oil companies have to explain their price\nadjustments including providing supporting documents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the group pointed\nout the oil companies\u2019 long history of overpricing especially after the Oil\nDeregulation Law (ODL) of 1998 where government surrendered its power to\nregulate oil prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON recalled\ngovernment\u2019s claim that the ODL would result in fairer and more stable fuel\nprices. Government also promised that the ODL would dismantle the local oil\ncartel by allowing the entry of new players to challenge the domination of\nShell, Caltex and Petron, thus supposedly letting market forces determine real\noil prices. But deregulation only worsened oil industry monopoly pricing and\nallowed oil companies to set prices opaquely with the consent of government\nthat gave up much of its regulatory powers, according to IBON.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shell, Caltex, and\nPetron still dominate the Philippine oil industry and they remain among the\nmost profitable firms in the country. In 2000, Shell Philippines had a net loss\nof Php334 million that grew to a net income of Php43.7 billion in 2017. Caltex\nPhilippines had a net loss of Php3 billion in 2000 that changed to a net income\nof Php6.4 billion in 2017. Petron Philippines had a net loss of Php1 billion in\n2000 that became a net income of Php8.9 billion in 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON said that the\ngovernment should insist on transparency through the DOE circular as an initial\nstep to rein in the oil firms\u2019 monopoly overpricing and profiteering. But\nbeyond this, said the group, the government should also restore the regulatory\npowers over the oil industry that it gave up under the ODL and steadily work\ntowards the strategic goal of a nationalized oil industry. ###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Research group IBON said that the Department of Energy (DOE) circular ordering oil companies to unbundle prices is a welcome and overdue measure for greater transparency to help prevent overpricing of oil products. However, the government must have the political will to implement this and the involvement of the public and consumer groups must be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,14],"tags":[347,436,1829,1769,116,2047],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8318,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8316\/revisions\/8318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}