Escudero bats for amendment of oil price deregulation law

Sen. Francis Escudero. INQUIRER.NET FILE PHOTO

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines—Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero said here Tuesday he would push for an amendment to the Oil Price Deregulation Law to prevent predatory pricing that has resulted in higher fuel prices in Negros Occidental.

“In areas where there is market failure, or clearly an absence of competition, government must be able to enter the picture and set the prices to prevent predatory pricing from happening,” said Escudero, who was in Bacolod City for the 3rd Congressional District Education Summit.

Negrenses have been calling on the government to act on the large disparity in fuel prices that has caused them to pay more than consumers in Metro Manila and Cebu.

The reason given by the Department of Energy is that there is not much competition in the sale of fuel in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental that has been controlled by only a few market players, Escudero said. In Metro Manila, stiff competition has resulted in more competitive pricing, he said.

An amendment to the Oil Price Deregulation Law would allow the government to step in, Escudero said.

When the Oil Deregulation Law was first implemented, the promise was that fuel prices would go down, but today, they are above P50 per litter, he pointed out.

“Clearly, oil deregulation has not and did not work for us,” Escudero said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Alfredo Abelardo Benitez (Neg. Occ., 3rd District) said the President’s approval of an additional budget allocation of P300 million for the DOE will allow it to hire more people and purchase equipment to monitor and regulate the oil industry.

It would also provide the DOE with more money to monitor oil price disparities, and determine the accuracy of fuel pumps, among others, he added.

Benitez said he would meet with Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla to discuss the oil price disparity.

The DOE had said earlier that it had the manpower to monitor only 15 to 20 percent of the national oil industry, so the additional P300 million would, hopefully, give the department the capability for better coverage of the rest of the Philippines, Benitez said.

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