With Iran announcing the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a possible war deal finally taking shape, the Philippine government’s so-called “energy emergency response” now appears to be a dithering strategy. It looks more like the state sprinted into a trap door—akin to buying a fire truck for a backyard barbecue that may never actually turn into a blaze.

The government, through the state-run Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), appears to have panicked into buying fuel at a time of record-high prices. Yet to this day, no one can clearly say whether those costly diesel purchases were ever released to the market or if they are still languishing, unseen and unaccounted for, in borrowed storage facilities.

Last week, the major image splashed across the headlines was the President parading hefty fuel price cuts, primarily for diesel products. This occurred amid reports suggesting that oil firms were pushed to follow the government’s math instead of the usual MOPS-based pricing, turning what should have been a market adjustment into something closer to political price theater.

The painful truth is that the price drop came from shifts in the global oil market and not from any masterstroke by Philippine officials, no matter how hard they tried to take a victory lap for such price rollbacks.

These factors matter because they determine whether the country’s oil industry stays viable or sinks deeper into distortion, and whether public money in a crisis was spent prudently or simply burned in a panic.

In the middle of this frenzied government fuel procurement, controversy erupted when Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim flatly denied that the oil shipment announced by the Department of Energy (DOE) came from Malaysia. This prompted Energy Secretary Sharon Garin to clarify that the cargo actually originated from Singapore. To some extent, that is a diplomatic blunder that landed squarely as an international embarrassment and a case of credibility whiplash for Philippine energy officials.

What was packaged to consumers as a pocket-friendly win reads in investor circles as a blaring red flag. It signals that capital entering the Philippine energy market isn’t stepping onto a level playing field, but into a game where the rulebook can be rewritten mid-game at the whim of public officials. That Presidential announcement on mandated pricing adjustments sends a blunt signal: market deregulation here is, at best, conditional. It suggests market forces can be dialed up or down at will, and that a “state of emergency” declaration could be a shortcut to overriding established rules whenever it suits the narrative.

Typically, when a government starts “fine-tuning” policies with political hands or lurching into panic mid-crisis, it doesn’t look like leadership—it shows instability. Investors read that signal fast. Rules here can bend when pressure hits, so they price in a risk for that. As a result, the Philippines ends up stuck with a higher risk premium compared to market peers globally. That “extra charge” isn’t notional; it trickles straight down as higher prices that Filipinos pay for goods and services.

The handful of pesos saved from last week’s rollback may prove to be a costly illusion. Once investors price in the risk, those premiums seep into everything and will covertly stack heavier pesos onto the commodities that Filipinos will keep paying for throughout their lifetimes. That is exactly how we have been driving big-ticket investors out of the Philippine oil sector. When policies get politicized and the market distorted, refineries shut down. In fact, even Petron Corp. once came close to walking away from refining operations altogether due to heavy taxation that made staying in business feel like a punishment rather than a welcome participation.

The uncomfortable question regarding the PNOC oil procurement remains: will we be left holding that pricey oil supply even when market prices ease? If the ceasefire turns into a positive twist, oil prices will likely revert gradually to their old levels in the coming weeks, making that PNOC buffer purchase look like yesterday’s expensive mistake.

For Filipinos, this is brutally simple. Those fuel purchases are not abstract figures on a ledger, but public money drawn straight from taxpayers’ pockets. In an economy already under strain, even “emergency buying” cannot be a blank check for fiscal missteps. Every rushed decision in a crisis eventually circles back as a bill landing on Filipinos who are already being squeezed by their own budgets.

The government should step back from over-handling crisis response and let experienced industry players—those who actually live and breathe the market—take the lead. If we trust that expertise, we avoid the costly mistake of locking in high-priced transactions while the market is already turning downward. We can also spare public funds from being ensnared in bad timing and wasted supply.

Adding to the bizarre sideshow of this crisis has been the sudden rise of pseudo-experts in energy, nonchalantly telling the public to “accept reality” and brace for ₱100-per-liter fuel as the supposed new normal.

Today, that once-confident assumption looks almost inverted by reality. In hindsight, how much of that alarmist projection was real analysis, and how much was just noise riding the panic wave?

If there’s one sobering reality check from past price spikes, it is that “panic pricing” rarely holds its ground. Once the geopolitical dust settles, markets tend to snap back with quiet force. What once felt like a “new normal” in the heat of a crisis usually reverts toward pre-shock levels within a span of three to five months.

As real market veterans point out, if someone could truly and consistently predict oil price turns, they wouldn’t be on TV or social media; they’d already be billionaires.

Up until recently, the DOE was still trying to maneuver its way into securing storage space for PNOC’s oil purchases inside private oil company facilities. In a fully deregulated market, this approach starts to blur the line between coordination and barely disguised coercion. It can easily be interpreted as “confiscatory” in nature. Even assuming a declared national energy emergency, the core debate stands: whether it is sound governance for the state to simply announce that it needs a facility and demand it be handed over.

In an Advisory issued by the energy department, it explicitly stipulated that it authorizes the coordinated use of available storage facilities by the PNOC to support national petroleum requirements. Industry participants were directed to comply, with the DOE noting that non-compliance may result in regulatory action, including the cancellation or suspension of permits. Aside from Madagascar, the Philippines stands as the only country in the world to have declared a full-blown "national energy emergency" in response to the US–Iran conflict. What makes the move harder to defend is that there was no clear public assessment of the actual scale of the fuel supply threat that supposedly warranted such a sweeping intervention.

Another sign of crisis-driven overreaction is the sudden revival of plans to build a Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), an undertaking estimated to require a ₱176 billion capital outlay. Before government officials roll into another round of SPR announcements, the real first move should be discipline, not speed. A full, no-shortcuts feasibility study is needed to map out whether a reserve is best managed under direct government control or through a public–private partnership.

Well-calculated siting also matters. An oil reserve locked in a single location or limited to one type of fuel could quickly become a liability in a crisis. Furthermore, the rules for releasing oil reserves must be clearly defined and fully transparent long before any crisis hits. Markets behave far more calmly when governments lay their cards on the table regarding how much oil they hold and under what conditions it gets released.

Ultimately, stockpiles are just one layer of energy security. Countries that produce their own oil and gas reserves are far better positioned, while the smartest economies are moving beyond oil dependence by scaling up renewables, nuclear power, and long-term LNG deals. Real energy security is built upon viable policies designed for a long-term future, not impulsive reactions to temporary shocks.