Councilor supports move to open oil firms’ books

Thursday, February 2, 2012

A CAGAYAN de Oro lawmaker backed Thursday move by the Energy department to require oil companies to open their books of accounts to verify reports of unfair pricing and review the movement of oil prices.

Councilor President Elipe said while he is for oil deregulation law, the government must “exercise its rights” to access records of the oil companies.

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Earlier reports said President Benigno Aquino III has ordered the Departments of Energy, Justice, and Finance; and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to look into concerns of possible overpricing of petroleum products.

“This is the best move that the present administration has done. Records should be made public especially of the big three — Petron, Caltex and Shell — so that the people would really understand whether or not these oil companies are saying the truth of selling petroleum products without overpricing,” Elipe said in a radio interview.

Elipe, city council’s chairman of the committee on energy, said the government must closely study oil companies’ books of accounts and hold them liable if found overcharging, using crisis in countries experiencing conflicts as reason for such.

The legislator downplayed oil companies’ possible record manipulation for their safety by the time the books of accounts are presented.

“Let’s be positive with the present administration’s move and support the government’s effort to sustain this. Anyway, the government would be creating a credible group to verify the books whether it is manipulated or not. There are many ways on how to verify that they (oil companies) presented genuine records of accounts. So, let’s not be negative about it,” he said.

He added the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), BIR and the Commission on Audit (COA) could help consolidate the documents to support the authenticity of fuel servicing companies’ records.

Elipe challenged the administration to sustain efforts on checking the books of accounts regularly and not only during series of price increases that almost choked Filipinos to death due to neck-level petroleum prices.

Related to this, the Committee on Energy at the Lower House would also require oil companies to open their books of accounts during congressional investigation.

This, following allegations that oil companies lied of rolling back prices of their petroleum products and gasoline by P1 to P2 per liter in October 2011.

Meanwhile, in Cagayan de Oro, Elipe said gas stations allegedly play harsh by charging additional centavos to diesel, unleaded and premium gasoline “unnoticed”.

“They’re just observing their competitors. If neighboring gas stations price this much, then they hike up their prices to a difference of 10 centavos, or down by the same centavo. It’s easy for them to do overpricing,” he said.