Friday, December 14, 2007 Lack of jobs, not fuel prices, causing problems: trader By Gil Alfredo B. Severino
AMID the crisis caused by the continuous fuel increases, capital market and development council chairman and Manila Bulletin vice president for advertising Melito Salazar Jr. said people should not blame fuel prices alone for the country's present woes.
Salazar, who is also president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce Foundation Inc., explained that the "crunch" being felt by all sectors of society cannot be attributed 100 percent to fuel prices alone.
"People don't have jobs, that's why. Increase in fuel cost is a given," Salazar said.
"It is rather the joblessness, the unemployment, poverty in general which had never been addressed ever since that cause all these strikes," Salazar stressed.
"Look, fuel price hikes is a worldwide phenomena but there are no 'untat biyahe' in other parts of the world. Why? It's because people have jobs in other countries," he added.
"Give people decent paying jobs and fuel prices becomes manageable to them. The problem is why don't we have jobs? It's because there are no investments. Why no investment? It's because it is too expensive to invest here in the Philippines because of corruption," Salazar explained.
Salazar further explained there can be no other explanation except corruption for this joblessness.
Tsinoy businessman and Bacolod-Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Inc. (BFCCCI) president James Chua agreed with Salazar and added that the national government should supply people with comparative studies of gasoline station-based pump prices.
"We just don't talk about world market prices of oil because of added cost such as refinery, shipping, profit, among others. What we need are information of pump prices in other Asean countries. So we have a basis where to direct our protest," Chua said.
"Oil companies have the right to their profits but if they are abusive here in the Philippines compared to other countries and if we can prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that a cartel does exist, then let's bring them to court," he added.
Chua knew that Department of Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes is taking a look at the "books" of big oil players here in the Philippines. "What he should do is to compare their books with those in other countries and proved the existence of a cartel, " Chua also said.
