DOE sees no letup in rising trend, Palace asks transport strike put off
World oil prices are expected to trend higher in the following weeks, which would translate to higher domestic pump prices—a situation neither the government nor the country has control over, the Department of Energy (DOE) said Monday.
“Let’s see the trading prices this week, but the factors we cited would support an increase in prices. I don’t see a significant factor or event that would offset those factors at the moment,” Rino Abad, Director for the DOE’s Oil Industry Management Bureau, said.
Another huge oil price hike is set to be imposed today, Tuesday, with diesel prices going up by P6.55 per liter, while gasoline prices will rise by P2.70 per liter and kerosene by P5.45 per liter.
This developed as the Palace appealed to jeepney drivers and operators to postpone their planned transport strike this month, assuring them the government is doing its best to help them amid skyrocketing fuel prices.
The factors Abad mentioned include increased fuel demand from the United States due to its summer driving season, the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in China, and the ban by most countries on Russian oil owing to its invasion of Ukraine.
The Philippines imports more than 90 percent of its supply from the world market, and has no control on global supply, Abad noted.
The DOE also continues to appeal to local oil companies to implement price discounts or promotions to soften the impact to the public.
Acting presidential spokesman Martin Andanar said one of the efforts the government continues to do is giving fuel subsidies to affected drivers.
“We call on all jeepney drivers and operators not to continue with their plan to suspend their operations this week,” he said.
He said the government’s distribution of fuel subsidies is ongoing and that more than 180,000 public utility drivers have already received the aid as of June 1.
Various transport groups have complained about the continuous oil price hikes even as they are not allowed to raise fares.
Most of the members of Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Tsuper at Operator Nationwide (Piston) said they would rather stop working to avoid further losses, with another huge increase in the price of diesel looming.
But the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) said it is unlikely to approve pending fare hike petitions in the remaining days of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, Transport groups filed petitions back in January to increase minimum fares up to P15 from P9 to mitigate the impact of rising pump prices.
But the decision will likely be left to the administration of President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr., LTFRB Executive Director Ma. Kristina Cassion said.
Hearings for the fare hike petitions are set on June 28 and 29, which coincide with the last week of the Duterte administration.
Duterte earlier approved a fuel subsidy for PUV drivers and the poorest families instead of suspending the excise taxes on fuel, as local pump prices soared.
Earlier, transport groups vowed to “bury” the LTFRB with complaints over the government’s inaction on their fuel subsidies.
In an interview over radio DZRH, Liga ng mga Transportasyon at Operators sa Pilipinas national president Orlando Marquez said public transport groups would try to pin down LTFRB chairman Martin Delgra, who they said has not acted on their petitions for a fare hike amid the global oil crisis.
Marquez said of Delgra: “He’s more slippery than a catfish. He doesn’t even talk to us, he doesn’t even have a public consultation.”
This week’s oil price hike was driven by increased demand from northern hemisphere countries due to the summer peak period from June to September, the Russian oil ban by the European Union; and the easing of lockdowns in China, which is projected to increase the oil demand, industry sources said.
On May 31, the oil companies implemented a price decrease in gasoline by P1.70 per liter contrary to diesel and kerosene, which increased by P1.20 and P2.45 per liter, respectively.
These resulted in the year-to-date net increase of P23.85 per liter for gasoline, P30.30 per liter for diesel, and P27.65 per liter for kerosene.
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said the fuel price hikes will dissipate the value of wage hikes recently granted by the wage boards across 14 regions in the country.
“The new fuel price hike will surely trigger prices of basic commodities and cost of services to shoot up and would further diminish the buying power of wages,” TUCP President Raymond Mendoza said.
He said the buying power of the current wage adjustments is being dissipated by the series of extraordinary increases in prices of basic commodities and cost of services and have no impact in lifting the lives of workers from worsening poverty caused by the pandemic crisis.
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said 14 regional wage boards have released wage increase orders ranging from P30 to P110 for both agricultural and non-agricultural sector workers. Some regional wage boards mandate the increases in tranches, which would take effect within this month and a few weeks later.
“Because of extraordinary inflation, the series of wage increase orders issued by the wage boards failed to restore the purchasing power of wages and it didn’t uplift workers’ purchasing power above the poverty threshold wage level,” Mendoza said.
The P33 wage increase in Metro Manila, for example, raises the minimum wage from P537 to P570 per day. However, despite being the highest minimum wage rate in the country, the wage hike in the metropolis failed to surpass the P640 daily poverty threshold, Mendoza said.
“This phenomenon directly hit the lives of workers and their families already bearing the brunt of the pandemic, in particular, the informal workers, the daily paid and the minimum wage workers who are mostly contractual and short-term, end-of-contract employees,” Mendoza said.