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TAGBILARAN CITYaa  — Representatives of oil companies in the country have denied setting up suggested retail price (SRP) per liter of petroleum products (regular and special gasoline and diesel).

This denial came out during the Consultation Forum on Oil Prices in Region 7, called and initiated by Bohol Gov. Edgar Chatto and held at Bohol Tropics Resort Club last Friday afternoon in the wake of current increases of fuel prices among retailers in the provinces.

Toby Nebrida of Chevron Philippines Inc (CPI) declared that his company or other oil companies do not set the pricing of fuels in distribution aspect.

Lawyer Victor de la Serna however asked Vito Racho, a retailer-distributor in the city, about it and the latter responded that it was not them (retailers) who set up the pricing but the companies themselves.

De la Serna maintained that the big oil dealers have been into “extortionate” oil pricing or “price fixing” made by big oil companies. He earlier accused the retailers here of having a cartel that is “monopolizing” the oil prices in the province.

He also slammed on the Department of Energy for doing nothing on the increase of petroleum prices, adding that he would propose even for the abolition of the department, which is funded by people’s taxes.

DOE director Zenaida Monsada however retorted by saying that De la Serna’s accusation was unfair. She explained that what the DOE has been doing is to monitor on petroleum products sold in the market based on the oil deregulation law.

In her power-point presentation, she showed that oil price hikes have been subject to global market movements and even political tensions among oil producing countries.

De la Serna then posed the question to the oil traders if they are losing in their businesses because they are setting up more retail outlets in this city and in other places like Cebu City.

Lawyer Katrina Nicdao of Petron invoked a certain law preventing the oil firms from “discussing oil pricing” in public to avoid saying incriminatory statement.

Nebrida told the forum that, under the deregulation law, the companies do not make profits, and could not guarantee profit margin. During the time when oil was regulated, the companies make profits, he added. 

Chatto said the dialogue served as venue to ventilate issues concerning oil supply and their prices. He said the forum may be a venue for some considerations or solutions, such as revisiting the VAT imposed on petroleum products.

Comparison

Based on the DOE presentation, Ubay has the lower price of diesel than in Tagbilaran City. Diesel in Ubay is priced at P50.65/liter compared to P52.15 in the city. Almost all the dealers — Petron, Chevron, Shell and Caltex — have a uniform pricing on special gasoline at P62.95.

In Carmen town, special gasoline is sold at P66.05/liter; regular at P62.90/liter; and diesel at P54.80/liter. In Talibon, special/premium is sold at P64.80; regular (P61.25); and diesel (P53.05/liter).

Information gathered from the cities of Dumaguete and Cagayan de Oro revealed another scenario. All of the petroleum products have lower prices than in Bohol. Comparing Manila City, Cebu City and this city, the average disparity of oil prices is almost at P2.00/liter.