Big 3 may lose monopoly to put up expressway stations

Energy Secretary Vincent S. Perez is looking into the possibility of allowing other local oil players put up more gas service stations along the tollways.

"We want to see more independence on highways/tollways regarding the setting up of gas service stations," he said, in a press conference before leaving for Brunei to attend the 19th ASEAN Ministers Energy Meeting.

Perez had expressed his view that there is still no need to amend the Oil Deregulation Law, but took exception to this particular issue which he said needs to be restudied.

He said this will call for the amendments to the existing memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the major oil companies and the Philippine National Construction Corp. (PNCC).

"We are going to talk with the PNCC on the status of such agreement," he said, noting that this MOU was signed by the concerned parties before the Oil Deregulation Law was passed in 1998.

The MOU gave sole authority to the major oil players to put up gas service stations in the PNCC facilities, particularly in the North Luzon and South Luzon Expressways.

Perez explained that the agreement might warrant a review to allow the new players to put up their respective gas stations along the tollways being run by the PNCC.

So far, there are about nine applications for a service facility agreement (SFA) that have been submitted to the PNCC over the past three years. Some of these applications have come from the new oil players as well as from various property developers.

However, it was learned that the PNCC had not acted upon by any of the applications although they claimed to have already studied and forwarded their recommendation to the Tollway Regulatory Board (TRB).

Sometime in July last year, the TRB tried to take over the disposition of the nine applications because of the delays in PNCC’s decision.

However, the PNCC argued that it is the only entity that is authorized to approve such applications since TRB is only mandated to oversee the existing service facilities.

Under the existing guidelines governing the operation of the Luzon expressways, the TRB has been mandated to enforce the obligations of the tollway operator in the event of its (tollway operator) inability or refusal to implement the guidelines.

Section 12.0 of the guidelines states that the TRB has the right to assume the obligations of the tollway operator "in cases where the tollway operator fails or willfully refuses to enforce its rights and obligations as well as the instruction of the TRB under the SFA (service facility agreement) and these guidelines."