Profit-tearing

Among Asian countries, the Philippines has one of the highest petroleum product prices. Not just in the ASEAN nations, but in all of Asia. Malaysia’s, Indonesia’s,and Vietnam’s prices — especially of the all-important diesel, used for vehicles that transport people and goods — remain very manageable, thanks to quick government response by way of subsidies or price caps (or both). No wonder theirs are the fastest-growing economies in the region.

Singapore’s and Hongkong’s prices are a bit higher (due in large part to higher taxes), but the impact on their respective citizens is not, by a long shot, the same as that in our country. Both territories are compact, contain much fewer people and have ultra-efficient transport systems (trains and buses) run by electricity. Here, most public transport and freight vehicles run on expensive diesel, and our train system is a joke. Many jeepneys — that stalwart of our obsolescent mass transport system — have stopped plying their routes as fares failed to keep pace with fuel costs.

A few days ago, truckers threatened to keep their vehicles in their garages, saying that every trip they make results in a net loss. The consequences are too scary to contemplate: agricultural products rotting in provincial warehouses; medicines, canned goods, clothes, other merchandise unable to reach the retailers; groceries and convenience stores with empty shelves. Truly a recipe for chaos and disorder!

At the root of it all is a government in the grip of regulatory capture by the oil industry.

The Marcos administration, right after the United States’ war with Iran started, was in analysis paralysis — a state of denial. It boldly declared that we had around two months’ worth of oil as a buffer stock, and thus foresaw NO energy crisis.

But then the people, in their own folksy intelligence, could not understand why — if that be true — did fuel prices skyrocket instantaneously after the bombing. Wouldn’t it have been more in keeping with common sense for prices to be stable until after the stocks purchased at the old prices had been exhausted?

Then the government, doing a brazen volte face, suddenly declared a state of energy emergency and certified as urgent a bill that would allow the President to suspend the excise tax on fuel.

Emergency, my foot! The House spent more time on the impeachment hearings of Vice President Duterte than on measures to curb the cost of fuel. After the House finally found time in between impeachment hearings, the bill languished for a few days in Malacañang before it was signed into law, the President vacillating because of dire warnings from his economic managers about the loss of revenue.

Observers say it was all unnecessary. Then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, exhibiting more balls than Marcos Jr., during her time simply issued an Executive Order putting a cap on gas and diesel prices in the aftermath of typhoon “Ondoy.”

In fine, it all boils down to an unwillingness on the part of the government to lock horns with the oligarchs who control the oil industry and call them out for their shameless profiteering.

Digong Duterte was right. Marcos Jr. is indeed a weak leader. By showing that it is scared of the oil companies, the present dispensation has allowed profiteering to tear at the fabric of our struggling economy.