Bayan Muna Executive Vice President Carlos Isagani Zarate today said that “consumers will once again be placed in the dark due to the continued lack of transparency in the impending increase in petroleum product prices”, urging Congress to expedite the approval of the Unbundling of Fuel Prices Bill.
The Department of Energy-Oil Industry Management Bureau (DOE-OIMB) has estimated a price hike of P0.40 to P0.90 per liter for gasoline, with diesel and kerosene prices also expected to rise.
Zarate, who previously served as House Deputy Minority Leader in the 18th Congress, emphasized the necessity of the Unbundling of Fuel Prices Bill, which was originally filed by the Bayan Muna Partylist.
“Unbundling of oil prices is an accountability mechanism to make these oil companies, particularly the big ones, transparent on how these almost non-stop oil price hikes result in windfall profits, while our consumers are now overburdened not only by so much taxes but also by high prices of basic goods,” Zarate stated.
He challenged the House leadership to prioritize House Bill 3004, underscoring the need for transparency in oil pricing.
“Congress should fast track House Bill 3004 so that consumers, the public, would finally be made aware of how oil pricing is done and the schemes employed by oil companies to earn more profits. This is all in the spirit of transparency since every peso means so much more, especially to ordinary already economically burdened consumers,” Zarate urged.
Zarate also called on the DOE to support the bill actively and to recommend its certification as an urgent legislative measure to the president. “With the Supreme Court decision, we strongly urge the DOE to be more proactive and support this bill. They can even lobby the president to classify this legislation as urgent along with other bills that would stop or at least mitigate the severe economic effects of the now becoming regular oil price hikes,” he added.
Highlighting the lack of transparency in oil companies’ actual expenses, Zarate stressed the importance of the DOE’s authority under Section 15 (a) of RA 8479 to demand and compile information about the oil industry. “For more than 25 years after the oil deregulation law, the government does not know the actual cost of fuel and is therefore not capable of determining predatory pricing or overpricing. This is the tragic folly of deregulation. For decades, consumers could have overpaid billions of pesos in overpriced fuel. Worse, these also led to price increases of other products using fuel. It’s about time we end this,” Zarate emphasized.
“There is nothing confidential about the actual cost of producing oil. We have to put a stop to this abuse of oil companies that have made life more difficult for the poor who have to pay more for fuel, for transport fare, and for LPG just because there is no transparency in the oil industry. This bill is most timely now in the time of crisis, that every centavo and peso count in the shrinking budget of consumers,” Zarate concluded. #
