WHICH is more important, kitchen gas or motor vehicle fuel? The question occurred to me when I read yesterday in this daily the report that, unless prevented from doing so, liquefied petroleum gas price will be raised by P4 per kilogram on Monday. The report said that the President failed to include kitchen fuel in her Executive Order 839 fixing the price ceiling on petroleum products in view of the natural calamities that hit this republic over the past number of weeks.

The president of the LPG Marketers Association said they have asked the Department of Energy to come up with a guideline so the price of LPG kitchen fuel may be regulated, too. But no guideline was made, and the cooking gas dealers were reportedly informed by their LPG suppliers that starting next week kitchen fuel prices will be increased. The situation presents a dilemma to the consuming public, a choice between satisfying human need and preserving the ecosystem.

Sun.Star accepts donations for victims of Typhoon Ondoy

The point is that allowing the price of LPG to freely seek its own level would drive the consumers to go for the much cheaper substitute: firewood, and other non-gas kitchen fuel. Which means that undue pressure would be put on our ecosystem as people would go after our wood preserve to get, by any means, the firewood that they need.

This brings us to the question: How would the incumbent administration break this impasse? The only way, of course, is to fall back immediately on EO 839. Amend it to include LPG, at least in the meantime that a better way of solving the dilemma is still to be found. Perhaps, repealing the current oil deregulation could be the best answer. Oil regulation provides for government subsidy to oil companies, where their loss to the price cap may be recovered.

It does mean more expense to the government. The government is in a position to recover the same from taxing other sectors of the business community, which in turn may impose a commensurate increase in the prices of their respective products in the market.

But at least, the amount is not concentrated on one consuming-public sector which is most vulnerable to the problem.

Spreading out the subsidy tax thinly over a wide swat of consumers would be less painful than concentrating it only on kitchen gas consumers.

At least, cooking gas users cut across all social levels, from the lower middle class to the affluent, well appointed kitchens of our society. And all of them would benefit from the government petroleum products subsidy, thus protecting effectively our ecosystem.