(UPDATE) PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Saturday announced another rollback in fuel prices set to take effect on Tuesday following weeks of consecutive increases.
In a video statement, Marcos said diesel was expected to drop by at least P24.94 per liter, gasoline by P3.41 per liter, and kerosene by P2 per liter.
Oil industry sources said the price rollbacks are expected as the ceasefire between the US and Iran continues to hold.
They said diesel prices are expected to fall by about P24 to P26, while gasoline prices are expected to decrease by around P2 to P3 per liter.
These estimates are based on the 5-day trading of Mean of Platts Singapore, the pricing basis of refined goods in Southeast Asia.
This will also be the second consecutive week that diesel and gasoline are estimated to decline.
Local oil companies implemented rollbacks this week, as diesel prices decreased by as much as P23 per liter and gasoline by as much as P6.50 per liter.
Meanwhile, the president of the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippine Islands (CCPI) criticized on Saturday what he called the government’s “stupid” oil policy decisions, saying the sale of the state’s 40-percent stake in Petron and the removal of the Oil Price Stabilization Fund (OPSF) weakened the country’s ability to cushion fuel price shocks.
“The government did a major mistake — they sold their ownership in Petron,” Jose Luis Yulo Jr., president of the CCPI, said.
He said the government’s former 40-percent stake in Petron gave it partial control over where oil was sourced and access to figures that could help it influence fuel prices in the market.
“So now they’re from the outside looking in. They have no control,” he said.
Yulo said the government used to have a 40 percent stake in Petron, while Saudi Arabia held another 40 percent, and the remaining 20 percent was distributed through the stock market.
Asked whether the country still needed more industry players even as the Philippine National Oil Co. sought to build up inventory, Yulo sharpened his criticism and pointed to another scrapped mechanism.
“A lot of stupid things the government did, selling out this ownership of a company that had all the information, they also took out the oil stabilization program or the OPSF,” he said.
Yulo said the Oil Price Stabilization Fund used to serve as a buffer by allowing the government to accumulate funds when oil prices were low and use them to prevent pump prices from rising too quickly when global costs surged.
