According to today's papers, the Department of Justice is currently looking into the books of the oil companies to ferret out hanky-pankies of unfair market practice.
Justice Undersecretary Jose Vicente Salazar, speaking on behalf of the Department of Energy (DOE) - DOJ Task Force told the press that they are still gathering data.
Meanwhile, House Deputy Minority Leader Roilo Golez filed a resolution calling on the Commission on Audit (COA) to audit the profits of the Big Three, which he claims apparently have formed a cartel.
What would this audit try to establish?
Nothing.
It will not lead to lower oil prices.
When will our policy makers and legislators learn that under the current deregulated environment the price of oil, or any commodity for that matter, couldn't be dictated by a scheming trio-the so-called Big Three?
We have supposed to have licked this problem when the oil deregulation law was implemented. New players have come in. Although these have not toppled any of the Big Three, they have made significant inroads into the market.
A congressman from Cebu would even like to have an inquiry into the "fabulous" profits of the Big Three which he reckoned to have "balloned" to P 70 B since 1998. Is that amount something to crow about?
If we are to assume that this amount is equally divided among the three, the yearly profit would
amount to something like P2.3 B for each of them. Now, compare this with PLDT's net income of P 33 B or so last year.
No sir, the big money in oil is not made in retailing or refining, the mainstay business of the Big Three. In the downstream segment of the oil industry, margins are razor-thin; one can make profit if you make yourself more efficient than the competition across the street.
Increases in crude prices cut the bottom line of refiners, not pad it.
On the other hand, the Saudi oil fields extract oil from the ground at a cost of less than $10 a barrel.
Government task forces and Senate inquiries supposedly in aid of legislation generate lots of air, but no substance. The latter in particular has been meticulously refined by our ambitious politicians to become a springboard of choice for loftier ambitions.
How many of our neophyte senators have been elected on the basis of media exposure in connection with endless legislative inquiries? Many of them do not have a legislative track record to speak of.
Rather than digging up dirt, if any, from private businesses, our policy makers and legislators should spend time looking at strategic plans towards energy security and independence.
Like for instance, making the business climate more hospitable to investors rather than dragging them infront of the kleiglights of the senate hall, and berating them , humiliating them publicly.
Initiating white papers and well-researched studies on how to make the renewable energy bill more effective even before this piece of legislation is passed by the House.
Policy making is too important for our future to be left alone to lawmakers.
Do not blind us, the hapless consumers, with squid tactics, on the real cause of our seeming helplessness against the onslaught of high energy prices, which is governance, or the lack of it.
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