Erle Frayne Argonza
Good day! Here is a news report submitted by the Agence France Press regarding the manipulation of oil prices in Manila.
The Philippine oil sector is still largely an oligopolistic market. The practice of the biggest oil companies of manipulating prices had shown clear evidence of unwarranted cartelization of oil downstream products.
Whether the deregulation of the oil sector had benefitted the consuming public altogether had been a very hot issue since the 1990s.
[Prepared 21 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
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Agence France-Presse - 7/21/2008 10:09 AM GMT
Philippines probes alleged fuel price manipulation
The Philippine government began an investigation Monday into allegations that fuel firms are manipulating retail prices by hiking them almost every week.
A special joint task force from the energy and justice departments had met representatives from the firms to check if sharp recent fuel price rises are justified, officials said.
"We have started our investigation and we have started collating data. The role of the task force is to make sure that the interest of the consumers are protected," said Justice Undersecretary Jose Vicente Salazar.
Salazar said the task force had obtained an independent university study on fuel prices and audits of earnings by fuel firms.
Consumer groups have criticised sharp price hikes in recent months as being too high. But fuel firms say they are just keeping up with the global rise in oil prices and that they have lost money by delaying increases.
Salazar said the data gathered so far provided no sign of "violation of any of the laws we have right now against predatory pricing, cartelization and unfair competition."
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, who is struggling with record low popularity ratings, has successfully asked fuel firms to trim diesel prices to help ease the pain of surging inflation, according to her spokesman.
The retail price of gasoline went up 19 times this year while diesel and kerosene prices went up 20 times, press reports have said.
Protesters have scheduled rallies at the offices of leading fuel firms this week to condemn the price hikes.
