CLARK FREEPORT – Amid the recent series of hikes of fuel prices, Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras consoled the public here yesterday with statistics as of last Jan. 16 indicating that worldwide, five other countries sell diesel and unleaded gasoline at higher prices.
Speaking during an energy forum sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) here, Almendras noted that the country ranks sixth with diesel selling at the pump price P46.69 per liter and unleaded gasoline by P56.53.
This, even as Almendras vowed to furnish both the Senate and the Lower House copies of the book of accounts which oil companies are set to voluntarily submit to the DOE for auditing. This move, he said, could be helpful in possible legislations on oil regulation.
“We are forming an independent group of respected people with unquestioned integrity (who would look into the books of accounts of the oil firms),” he said.
Almendras lamented allegations that he has been partial to oil companies on the issue of fuel price hikes.
“No country can regulate international fuel price. An economy has to be so large as to influence fuel price,” he noted.
He said that no such economy exists at present, so that the cost of fuel would remain “market-driven.”
The statistics on fuel prices in various countries as prepared by his office showed fuel prices, in Philippine pesos, higher in Australia at P68.90 and P68.64 for diesel and unleaded gasoline, respectively;
Hong Kong at P68.64 and P94.71; Singapore at P55.66 and P72.39, New Zealand at P55.08 and P76.71 and California in the US at P47.52 and P42.85, respectively.
Almendras noted that lower prices of diesel and unleaded gasoline in other countries are mostly due to government subsidy which, he stressed, the Aquino administration could not afford.
He noted that politics and lack of foresight of previous administrations got the DOE into debt by about P1 trillion which the Aquino administration has been able to already reduce down to P931 billion.
The new statistics revealed that Indonesia, China, Thailand and Malaysia came next to the Philippines in the order diesel and unleaded gasoline prices.
Almendras said the government is undertaking measures to lower prices amid plans targeting 100,000 hectares of unproductive areas in various parts of the country for bioethanol plantations.
Admtting that the government’s requirement for a five-percent bioethanol content for local fuel has become problematic because 90 percent of such environment-friendly fuel is now being imported and thus even jacking up the pump prices.
He bared government plans to eventually increase the requirement for biofuel content of local fuel to be increased to 10 percent once local biofuel production has been boosted.
Already, the government issued last November a certificate of accredidation to manufacture bioethanol to the Roxol Bioenergy Corporation which could produce 30 million liters per year, he noted.
Almendras also said that the government already issued to the Green Future Innovations Inc. and the Canlaon Alcogress Agro-Industrial Corp. notices to proceed with the construction of bioethanol plants that could yield 99.4 million liters per year.
He assured consumers that since he took over the DOE, his department has been monitoring the rise and fall of local fuel prices and comparing this in price fluctuations in the international market and that no abuses have been committed so far.
