The recent and unabated spikes in the price of gasoline and other petroleum products characterizes and manifests the decades-old national exploitation by the oil cartel and the inutile and subservient character of the present Philippine government to the whims and caprices of foreign and local profiteers.

Consider these:

(1) Oil companies are making a killing, reaping billions in profit every year
The pump price of diesel has already increased by P6.75 per liter since January; kerosene, P6.50, and gasoline, P6. Petron posted a 59% increase in profits, or P5.4 billion, for the first nine months of last year. In 2009, the same oil company posted a profit of P4.3 billion. Pilipinas Shell posted a P7.6 billion profit for the first nine months of 2009. It posted P5.07 billion in profit in 2008, the year when oil prices jumped to its highest in recent history. In the Top 1,000 corporations in the Philippines in 2009, Petron placed first with gross revenues of P288.8 billion in 2008. Pilipinas Shell was second, and Chevron Philippines (Caltex) was fifth.

(2) There is no shortage in supply
None of our oil comes from Libya, and yet oil companies invoke the Libyan unrest as if it’s causing a major disruption in the global supply of oil to justify price hikes in the Philippines. Libya accounts for less than 2 percent of global oil output and yet oil companies are invoking the unrest to jack oil prices in the same levels as in 2008. Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries have repeatedly stated that whatever production shortfall is happening in Libya is being compensated by increased output in OPEC countries. Clearly, there is no real shortage.

The oil price hikes allegedly due to the unrest in North Africa and the Middle East is clearly another product of speculation and wanton profiteering. Rep. Neri Colmenares of Bayan Muna said that the crisis in the Middle East is such that “it has become a cash cow for the Big Three.”

While a reasonable profit and return of investment is expected from oil companies, their greed should not be satisfied at the cost of exploiting the Filipino people. Clearly, the exploitation of oil companies has been exorbitant and shameless.

(3) Shameless overpricing by as much as P7.50 per liter
Arnold Padilla of BAYAN claims that “from 2008 to January this year, oil firms have implemented price hikes that were bigger than what changes in global prices and foreign exchange warrant. Similarly, they also implemented smaller rollbacks. The net result is an overpricing of around P7.50 per liter.” Oil companies squeeze an estimated P370 million everyday in extra profits from overpricing.

Indeed, oil companies have always been slow in rolling back prices when the cost of petroleum in the world market drops but are always quick to hike when the cost of petroleum in the world market increases. The Oil Deregulation Law has only given oil companies the right to manipulate oil prices that leads to arbitrary pricing and other illicit schemes to unjustly profit.

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