Fuel pump prices up anew

CEBU, Philippines — Prices of petroleum products continue to go up with oil firms implementing another round of pump prices hike today.

In separate advisories yesterday, oil companies said prices would rise by P1.10 per liter for gasoline, P0.20 per liter for diesel, and P0.70 per liter for kerosene.

These extend the price increases for diesel and kerosene to seven consecutive weeks, and gasoline to six straight weeks.

The upward adjustments will take effect at 6 a.m. today for most companies, except for Caltex which implemented the price movement at 12:01 a.m. and Cleanfuel which will start adjusting the prices at 4:01 p.m.

This week's adjustments reflect the movement in the international oil market wherein prices continued to surge due to the tightening OPEC supply throughout September. Last Tuesday, oil companies also implemented a hefty price increase of P1.90 per liter for gasoline, P1.50 per liter for diesel, and P2.50 per liter for kerosene.

The price adjustment resulted in a year-to-date net increase of P13.40 per liter for gasoline, P8.60 per liter for diesel and P5.14 per liter for kerosene.

The latest data from the Department of Energy shows that prevailing retail prices of diesel and diesel plus products in NCR for the monitoring period from August 15 to 17 ranged from P58.95 to P72 per liter and from P63.95 to P82.10 per liter, respectively.

Meanwhile prices of gasoline ranged from P59 to P86.05 per liter depending on the RON or research octane number of the fuel. As for kerosene, prices monitored during the period ranged from P75.56 to P89.29 per liter.

Meanwhile, a group of taxi operators has asked the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to act on a petition seeking to increase the flagdown rate to P60.

In a radio interview, Philippine National Taxi Operators Association (PNTOA) vice president Leo San Juan said that his group already filed an appeal after the LTFRB only approved in October 2022 an additional P5 in the flagdown rate instead of the P20 they asked on top of the then P40 flagdown.

“We only asked for a P20 additional flagdown rate last year but approved P5 instead,” San Juan said.

“We already filed a motion for reconsideration so that the P5 will be increased to P20 as the cost of living of the (taxi drivers) also increased,” San Juan added.

According to San Juan, taxi operators are not asking for additional rate for the succeeding kilometers.

“There are no additional requests aside from the flagdown rate so that we do not need to calibrate as the number of the staff of LTFRB are limited. It will only take time before the calibration is finished and the meters are changed,” he noted.

San Juan said that based on their experience it would take five months for LTFRB to complete the calibration. He said once the LTFRB approves the flagdown rate increase, it only needs to issue stickers as proof that the fare hike adjustment is authorized.

“Last year, the LTFRB issued stickers for the P5 increase in the flagdown rate,” he noted.

San Juan said many taxis are in the garage as many operators are also affected by the operation of grab taxis.

“Many taxis are in the garage as our drivers will only suffer losses if they drive far and they have no passengers when going back,” he noted. — (FREEMAN)