DOE lacked foresight to address fuel crisis—Pacquiao
The looming fuel crisis could have been averted if the Department of Energy (DOE) had the foresight to stabilize oil prices by creating buffer stocks on gasoline and diesel at the onset, presidential aspirant Senator Manny Pacquiao said on Monday.
The standard bearer of the Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban (PDP-Laban) and PROMDI partylist said the Philippine National Oil Corporation (PNOC) should have had a regular stockpile of fuel that could be used as a reserve when there is a marked increase in petroleum prices in the global market.
At this point, Pacquiao said the government could have used those reserves especially during a conflict happening in other parts of the world, particularly between Ukraine and Russia.
“Na-create natin yang PNOC para gampanan yung trabaho kaso lang hindi nagagampanan yung trabaho. Walang reserve na fuel, walang tayong pondo para pang subsidize sa ating mga consumers (The PNOC was created to fulfill that job but it failed to do its job. Because we have no fuel reserves, we have no funds to subsidize our consumers),” Pacquiao said.
“Yang ikinakasama ng loob ko dahil saka lang tayo naghahanda kapag dumating ang mga sakuna. Bakit hindi tayo maghahanda kahit wala pang sakuna (That’s what irks me because we only prepare when something already happens, we are not preparing anything beforehand),” he added.
The senator pointed out that under the amended charter of the PNOC as provided under Presidential Decree 927, the agency is mandated “to provide and maintain an adequate and stable supply of oil and petroleum products for the domestic requirement and for that purpose to engage in, control, supervise and regulate the transportation, storage, importation, exportation, refining, supply, sale, and distribution of crude oil, refined petroleum and petroleum-based products, whether imported or produced by local refineries.”
Pacquiao said the PNOC should have exercised its mandate to create fuel reserves as soon as the government started easing up restrictions on transportation and businesses have started to normalize.
He added that apart from providing buffer stocks through the PNOC, the government should also revive the subsidy mechanism for oil and fuel consumers called the oil price stabilization fund (OPSF) which was abolished with the enactment of the Oil Deregulation Law.
Doing so, the lawmaker said, would enable the government to provide immediate subsidy to consumers whenever a fuel crisis happens.