IN THE midst of a series of oil price hikes, a rural-based group renewed its call to repeal the Oil Deregulation Law enacted in 1998.
The move is aimed to “safeguard measure against exploitation of big-time oil companies.”
For more than two decades, the Anakpawis militant group claimed that th Oil Deregulation Law has “empowered oil monopolies to overprice and manipulate oil pricing in the country.”
“Big-time oil companies are emboldened to manipulate and jack-up oil prices at an unaffordable levels courtesy of inability of the state to govern and regulate the prices of domestic petroleum products. It is like these oil monopolies are treating our country as one of their oil republics,” Anakpawis National President Ariel Casilao said.
The P9 per liter of gasoline, P11.25 per liter of diesel, and P9.75 per liter of petroleum, according to Anakpawis, represent the accumulated overpriced cost of oil products since the beginning of the year.
The group echoes the sentiments of its member organizations of farmers and fisherfolks on the “adverse impacts of oil price hike in the agriculture and fisheries productions.”
“Our farmers and fishers are among the sectors that are hardest hit by the unabated increases of oil products. Expensive oil products limit their farming and fishing activities, diminishing their already meager incomes and consequently threatens the domestic food security,” Casilao said.
The group said if the government is really after the welfare of the public, it should compel the Congress to immediately repeal the Oil Deregulation Law and take control over the oil industry.
“Now is the high time for the government to take full control and ultimately nationalize the entire oil industry. This is a necessary measure to safeguard the consumers from giant oil firms that rake super profit,” Casilao said.