IF OIL PRICES ARE UP, SO IS THE service at the neighborhood gas station.

On the scorching afternoon of June 28 in Mandaluyong City, the gas boy beamed at driver Jun Leuterio from ear to ear.

“How may I help you, sir?” he asked, inquiring also if the man behind the wheel preferred unleaded gas.

He wiped the windshield, checked the oil and water levels, and probably would have given Leuterio’s 1.6-liter Optra sedan a dust-off if requested.

When everything was said and done, he waved at Leuterio and said he hoped to see the driver again soon.

Leuterio, 30, paid around P60 more for the same 30 liters of gas he had purchased a few days ago. The night before, for the 16th time this year, oil companies had again raised pump prices by P1.50 a liter.

(At 12:01 a.m. Saturday, oil firms again raised their prices by P2 a liter for diesel and kerosene and P1 a liter for gasoline. It was the 18th time pump prices were raised this year.)

‘Intangibles’

So customer service is good. But hard-up motorists still need cheap gas.

“To me, it’s negligible,” Leuterio told the Inquirer in reference to the “extra” courtesy that gas stations are extending in this time of economic crisis.

“I still feel that oil companies are not tightening their belts enough to cushion the impact of oil price increases in the world market. They are simply passing the bulk to consumers,” he said.

A gas boy at a Valenzuela City station admitted that good customer service was among the “intangibles” that his company was employing to somehow ease the burden of motorists.

Asking to be identified only as Elmer, he said it was still better to have a pleasant face attending to an infuriated driver even if the bottom line remained the same—oil prices constantly increasing, with no end in sight.

“We were instructed to be always courteous with our customers,” Elmer said in Filipino. “We’re being monitored, and we can be suspended for not following this courtesy policy.”

Main problem

But Leuterio, a mid-level call center executive, pointed out that motorists spent only around five minutes at a gas station and, therefore, hardly benefited from smiling attendants.

“The main problem is still the exorbitant price of oil products,” he insisted.

And he said he could not imagine how low-income Filipinos were coping with the crisis.

As though to soften the continuing blows, one gas company has introduced prepaid cards that fix prices to at least P53 a liter. Others are offering fuel rebates through credit cards.

For all that, the continuous increase in gas prices has seriously dented Leuterio’s wallet: He takes home P25,000 a month but spends around P9,000 of that on gas.

Public transport

Leuterio said he was dealing with the problem by now taking public transport in moving around Metro Manila.

“Or if I decide to bring my car, I usually just travel from one point to another. If I need to go somewhere else, I just leave the car in one place so I’ll save on gas,” he said.

Even Leuterio’s coffee habit has been affected. No longer does he go to Starbucks every day, limiting his indulgence in the expensive brew to only once a week.