Filipino consumers will have to bear higher costs for fuel commodities this week, as prices of gasoline and diesel products will be jacked up anew by P0.75 per liter.
For kerosene products, the price hike will be P0.45 per liter, according to the price adjustment notices sent by oil companies.
The industry players will be increasing their prices effective Tuesday, Feb. 1. As of press time, those that already advised on price hikes had been Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Cleanfuel, Seaoil, PetroGazz and Chevron; while the rest of their rival-firms are expected to follow this week’s pricing trends.
This is already the fifth upward adjustment this year – and with the latest round of price hikes, net increases will already hover at P5.70 per liter for gasoline; P7.95 per liter for diesel; and P7.20 per liter for kerosene products.
As of Monday, prices in the world market have been on continued surge – with international benchmark Brent crude rising further to more than $91 per barrel; indicating then that there are no signs yet that the price rally would abate soon.
One key geopolitical event being monitored by market watchers is the Russia-Ukraine standoff because that is seen to have major impact on oil supply flow to markets – and if the situation will worsen, that will trigger oil prices to soar to $100 per barrel.
Given the incessant utpicks in domestic petroleum prices, House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Isagani Zarate had renewed calls to place the oil industry into a regulated state again – although through the years, that was the same plea that the industry and the government had never heeded.
“It is imperative that the downstream oil industry be again placed under regulation to protect our much-burdened consumers, yet the Duterte administration remains deaf on this call of our people,” Zarate lamented.
In the lawmaker’s view, “deregulation has allowed oil price increases to go unchecked...there is pressing need to regulate the oil industry to protect the majority of Filipinos from current runaway increases in oil prices.”
To date, there are no concrete plans or contingency measures being laid down yet by the government in cases global prices would skyrocket to $100 per barrel – as even the proposed bill in Congress on excise tax suspension for petroleum products has not been moving headway.