FILE PHOTO. Senator Many Pacquiao
MANILA, Philippines — The country is already on the brink of a fuel crisis, and Senator Manny Pacquiao is blaming the Department of Energy (DOE) for lacking the foresight to anticipate such a situation in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
While the DOE and oil industry sources say there is enough supply of fuel for the meantime, Pacquiao said the energy department should have already undertaken steps to arrest the rising fuel costs by creating buffer stocks on gasoline and diesel.
One way of doing this, he said, was to ensure that the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), which is under the DOE, has a regular stockpile of fuel that can be used as a reserve when there is a spike in fuel prices in the global market.
“‘Yan talaga ang malaking pagkukulang ng gobyerno, lalong-lalo na ‘yung DOE natin, dahil supposedly kapag normal ang sitwasyon natin dapat ang PNOC ang nag-iimport para mayroon tayong reserve na tinatawag para ‘pag dumating ‘yung mga ganitong pagkakataon mayroon tayong magamit,” Pacquiao said in a press release.
(That is a significant lapse of the government, especially the DOE, because supposedly when the situation is normal, the PNOC imports fuel to have reserves so that when times like these happen, we can use the reserve.)
“Hindi nagagampanan ‘yung trabaho [ng PNOC], eh di walang reserve na fuel, walang tayong pondo para pang subsidize sa ating mga consumers. Yang ikinakasama ng loob ko dahil saka lang tayo naghahanda kapag dumating ang mga sakuna. Bakit hindi tayo maghahanda kahit wala pang sakuna?” he added.
(The PNOC did not do its job so we don’t have reserved fuel, we don’t have funds to subsidize the needs of our consumers. Why are we only preparing when the crisis is already here? Why do we not prepare while there is no crisis yet?)
Pressed if Pacquiao thought that the fuel crisis is upon us, his office answered in the affirmative, adding that this was the official stand of the senator. “The mere fact that Congress is already talking about suspending excise tax (on fuel and other oil products) means we have a fuel crisis.”
The House Fuel Crisis ad hoc committee is conducting a hearing into the matter, with DOE officials insisting that there is yet no shortage in the supply of oil, although they admitted that rising pump prices calls for the need to review the oil deregulation law.
Several groups have already called for the suspension in the collection of excise tax for fuel imports to bring down prices amid the continued surge in global oil prices.
Thus, Pacquiao said, the role of the PNOC was crucial to ensure that there is enough supply even before the crisis hits.
Under the amended charter of the PNOC as provided under Presidential Decree 927, the PNOC is mandated “to provide and maintain an adequate and stable supply of oil and petroleum products for the domestic requirement and for that purpose to engage in, control, supervise and regulate the transportation, storage, importation, exportation, refining, supply, sale, and distribution of crude oil, refined petroleum and petroleum-based products, whether imported or produced by local refineries.”
In its 2020 annual report, the PNOC sought the establishment of the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) which envisions to create “large stockpiles of crude oil and/or petroleum products, stored in facilities located around the country (and possibly overseas) that are released during periods of local or international oil supply disruptions.”
However, the project did not materialize due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was again listed as one of its projects in 2022.
Pacquiao said PNOC should have exercised its mandate to create fuel reserves as soon as the government started easing up restrictions on transportation and businesses started to normalize.
Apart from providing buffer stocks through the PNOC, the government should also revive the subsidy mechanism for oil and fuel consumers called the oil price stabilization fund (OPSF) which was abolished with the enactment of the oil deregulation law, he added.
“Dapat ang ating gobyerno, taon-taon naglalaan ng pondo, mag-separate ka lang ng pondo para in case na dumating yung mga ganitong pagkakataon, yung tinatawag nating oil price stabilization fund, may pondo tayo taon-taon, mayroon na tayong reserve fuel, mayroon pa tayong pondo para i-subsidize ang ating mga consumers kasi kawawa po talaga ang ating mga consumers,” Pacquiao said.
(The government should have allotted yearly funds for the oil price stabilization fund in case times like these happen so that yearly we would have funds and reserve fuel and we can subsidize the consumers because they are taking the brunt of this crisis.)
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