MANILA, Philippines – Former socio-economic planning secretary Ralph Recto reasserted that fuel pump prices early this year were overpriced by as much as P8 per liter.

Recto issued the statement Friday in response to claims by his successor, National Economic Development Authority (Neda) Director General Augusto Santos, and Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes that his claim of an overprice in fuel prices was without basis.

Recto said it was the technical staff of Neda itself that had formulated the method of approximating at least a benchmark in the cost of fuel to compute the overprice to about P8 in April of this year.

At the time, oil companies were charging as much as P40.85 per liter of premium plus unleaded gasoline, P39.71 per liter of premium unleaded gasoline and P39.07 per liter of unleaded gasoline, said Recto.

This was about P8 more than the estimated gasoline price of P32 based on Neda computations, he said.

“My contention is not without basis. The Neda technical staff utilized a method of comparison and computation in order to arrive at an estimate of how much fuel prices should be in April of this year.

“Comparing it to the prevailing cost at that time, there was reason to believe we are being overcharged by oil companies,” said Recto.