VP NOLI URGES BIG OIL COMPANIES TO LOWER PUMP PRICES NOW BY AT LEAST P2
October 20, 2008

Vice President Noli “Kabayan” De Castro asked yesterday the big oil companies in the country to roll back now their pump prices by at least two pesos.

De Castro, together with the other council members, during the National Price Coordinating Council (NPCC) meeting held yesterday (October 20) at the Board of Investments building in Makati, urged the oil companies to follow the move of the small players to lower pump prices by two pesos given the lower oil prices in the world market today.

De Castro said that if the small players who are merely trading oil and have no refinery can afford to cut prices by at least two pesos, with more reason the big oil companies who import in bulk and have oil refineries here can roll back prices.

“These businessmen cannot claim they are always incurring business losses. They must exercise their corporate social responsibility and not just think of profit. I believe that one of the main causes of the present global economic crisis is the greed of those giant companies,” De Castro pointed.

“Why is it that whenever there is an increase of oil prices in the world market, these oil players immediately increase their pump prices. But when these prices go down in the world market it takes them so long to rollback?” De Castro noted.

“For transparency they should allow us to audit their records and books of accounts, so that we will know the basis for the computation of the fair price for gasoline and diesel,” De Castro said.

This was in the light of the NPCC's consensus to maintain the prices of prime commodities at their present level now until the Christmas season.

The objective of the NPCC is to find ways and means to keep the prices at their present levels until the end of the year. It was noted that some prices have stabilized and even gone down as in the case of cooking oil whose prevailing price is less than three pesos.

De Castro also noted that the bakers, and canned meat processors' representatives committed not to hike prices of bread and maintain it until Christmas.

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