TRIBUNE OPINION: EO 839 - IT CUTS BOTH WAYS
MANILA, NOVEMBER 8, 2009 (TRIBUNE) Pilipinas Shell’s court petition to suspend Executive Order (EO) 839 shows the face of big foreign vested interest up close.Foreign trade groups and governments, in which Pilipinas Shell parent Royal Dutch Shell exerts great influence, frequently complain about the use of local courts to intervene in largely business disputes and in the process encroach on territories that should be reserved for economic quasi-judicial agencies to take care of.
The company is now using the tactic that it has been supposedly rabidly against in stopping a purely executive function.
Not that Gloria implemented the EO out of genuine concern for public welfare since it was clearly a political ploy for the coming elections. Proof is that Malacañang never lifted a finger during the period when the whiplash of higher oil prices was coming every week.
Of course, the Palace can argue that today is different since Luzon remains under a state of calamity but no matter, oil companies seem to have gotten used to taking what they want without hearing a whimper from Gloria so much so that their moderated profit through the imposition of the price freeze is being treated as a breach of contract.
Gloria is acting in the same fashion that former Socio-economic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri did when he asked then government functionary turned corruption whistle-blower Rodolfo Lozada to “moderate their greed,” albeit temporarily, for only about the election campaign period, among oil firms.
Those who track oil prices in relation to the cost at the pump of oil products, including gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas, diesel and aviation fuel, will not bat an eyelash in saying that oil companies never reduced their prices to an equivalent ratio with the price of crude oil when its price was shooting up to high heavens at somewhere $140 per barrel.
At that time, oil companies were saying that break-even on the main oil products would be somewhere at P70 per liter and they got above P60 per liter during the oil price shock last year.
Using the same argument that oil companies cited when prices were high, the current level of crude prices of around $78 to $80 per barrel would mean a local price of not more than P40 per liter on the prime oil products.
Still oil companies, branded as being the epitome of capitalist greed, are correct in saying that the EO would be affecting their business and by this they mean reduced profit from the previous year.
If ever they lose, these losses are carried over as tax deduction the next year.
Shell being the remaining foreign refiner in the country, must be getting the pressure from its parent to lead in threatening the government to relent in lifting the price freeze on oil earlier than what it wants.
It is now resorting to a low-down trick its ilk had criticized in the past which was using the country’s corrupt justice system to work in its favor.
A well-lubricated justice is then widely expected to issue a temporary restraining order on the EO even if it means that it would be a clear breach of executive territory.
Then the Palace would make a big show out of lambasting oil companies for sidetracking the populist EO.
A spectacle in the court is then expected with state lawyers defending Gloria’s prerogative in imposing the EO and the counsels of oil companies telling the government it has all the right to determine whatever price they want to strangle the public with, as a result of a deregulated oil industry.
The legal sideshow is complemented with the political circus of the election next year with the candidates of Gloria riding on the supposed efforts to provide relief to the public through the reduced price.
Election ends, Gloria is in Congress, the EO is lifted, and the price of oil products shoot up by P10 per liter.
All greed satisfied.
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2009
by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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