The days of ‘secrecy’ in weekly oil price adjustments are numbered following the Supreme Court’s decision which upheld the fuel cost unbundling policy that the Department of Energy (DOE) initially attempted for implementation via a Circular in 2019.

Relative to the high court ruling, former Congressman and Bayan Muna Executive Vice President Carlos Isagani Zarate immediately challenged the leadership at the House of Representatives “to fast track the passage of House Bill 3004,” a legislative measure which seeks to unbundle or segregate the cost items being passed on by the oil companies at the pumps.

The former House Deputy Minority Leader emphasized that the SC ruling “is a bold step forward for accountability and to make these oil companies - particularly the big ones - transparent on how these almost non-stop all price hikes resulted (in) windfall profits, while our consumers are now overburdened not only by so much taxes but also of  high prices of basic goods.”

He reiterated that "Congress should fast track House Bill 3004 so that consumers - the public - would finally be made aware how oil pricing is done and the scheme employed by oil companies to earn more profits.”

Zarate indicated that such call “is all in the spirit of transparency since every peso means so much more, especially to the already economically burdened consumers.’

The former lawmaker similarly prodded the DOE “to be proactive in supporting the bill, strongly urging it to recommend to the President its certification as an urgent  legislative measure.”

Zarate lamented that under the current set-up of oil price adjustments, there is “lack of transparency in the actual expenses of oil companies, which include refining costs, storage, transportation, salaries, and advertising costs.”

He noted that “except for the international price of oil, nobody really knows the actual expenses of the oil companies in selling fuel. The oil companies must inform the DOE and the public of the actual cost, so that we will know if they are overpricing or not.”

Zarate primarily cited  Section 15 (a) of Republic Act 8479 or the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Law as DOE’s legal ground “to gather and compile information” from the industry players.

"There is nothing confidential about the actual cost of producing oil. We have to put a stop to this abuse of the oil companies that have made life more difficult for the poor who have to pay more for fuel, for transport fare, and for LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) just because there is no transparency in the oil industry,” he stressed.

When the DOE issued Department Circular No. DC2019-05-0008 five years ago, which has been mandating the unbundling of oil prices, court rulings had effectively stopped the policy’s enforcement and that compelled the department to elevate the case to the Supreme Court.

The energy department argued that its push for unbundling or segregation of cost components in fuel prices would be vital in ensuring transparency in the prices of petroleum products being retailed at the pumps.

However, the oil companies sued the DOE - invoking that the price unbundling rule may unduly reveal ‘trade secrets’ which they claim would counter the deregulation tenet prevailing in the downstream oil sector.

Under its 2019 Circular, the DOE primarily wanted four components to be segregated, namely: international cost; taxes and duties; the biofuels component in fuels; and then the ‘oil company take’ fraction.

For the international price components, those to be itemized are: import cost for both crude and finished products; freight cost, insurance and foreign exchange rate; while on taxes and duties, such shall include import duties, excise taxes, value added tax and other imposts.