Militants group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan urge boycott of oil firms over prices
Militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan on Tuesday called on the public to boycott oil firms that would refuse to bring down oil prices, stressing that they will remain profitable even with the imposition of a price ceiling.”The boycott should be a sign of protest against oil profiteering. We find hard to believe the threats by oil companies that there will be an oil shortage because they are allegedly losing revenues,” said Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. in a statement. “Oil products over the past month have remained more expensive than they should be. The previous rollbacks prior to October 15 were not enough. So we really doubt the claim that the oil firms are bleeding from profit losses,” Reyes added.
Oil firms on Monday raised the alarm on possible supply shortages with the imposition of a price cap on petroleum products, through Executive Order 839, which directs companies to bring down prices to their October 15 levels.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued the order Friday last week.
With the directive, independent oil players have said they were already canceling their oil imports, as they are likely to suffer revenue losses due to their inability to recover high costs of petroleum products.
“One problem is that the Department of Energy itself has legitimized the increases after October 15. It was the DoE who, after a dialogue with the oil firms, said that the previous price increases are in order thus giving the oil companies a reason to insist on their current prices,” Reyes added.
Bayan claimed that prior to typhoon Ondoy, oil prices should have been slashed by P5.81 a liter. At the time the typhoon hit, oil prices were brought down by only P2 a liter and two weeks after, oil prices had increased again.
After the recent onslaught of twin typhoons, Bayan said oil prices could have gone down by another P3.81 a liter.
Bayan tracked the movement of Dubai crude prices and foreign exchange (forex) rate from January 2008 to August this year. It then computed the impact on local pump prices of the monthly movement in Dubai crude and forex and compared the results with actual price changes during the said period. The difference served as the basis to determine overpricing.
“Before oil firms threaten us with a supply shortage, they should first be reminded of the huge profits they have made prior to the typhoon. Whatever loses they incur in the next two weeks will not be as huge as what they have earned since January this year,” Reyes said.
Bayan said the transnational oil companies usually buy from their mother companies at higher prices instead of seeking alternative sources of oil at cheaper prices.
“There remains a lot of work to do in terms of reversing the deregulation of the oil industry. Even temporary price control is being resisted by the oil firms because they have been so used to the deregulated regime. At the end of the day, we have to realize that this policy does not work for us,” Reyes explained.
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