OIL CRISIS ALSO USED TO DISTRACT“Mao nang miabot ta ini!” Thus dramatically declared then mayor Mike Rama, after verifying that no City Council member had actually read the JVA (35 pages, not 75 as earlier claimed) before voting for its approval on Jan. 9, 2020.
But then Rama himself later steered a supplemental agreement that was supposed to correct the defects.
Determining the culprits may take some time and a lot of looking into the facts and the legal issues involved. Which a case before the Supreme Court, filed by Vice Mayor Tomas Osmena last Jan. 16, 2026, will eventually resolve the question of legality and constitutionality.
But some facts stand out and keep standing: It’s covered by a contract, the law between the parties: a P5.5 billion joint venture agreement, proposed by Megawide Construction Corp., approved by the City Council and signed on Jan. 11, 2020 by then mayor Edgardo Labella.
It was followed by a supplemental agreement, which went through the same route for screening and approval, this time signed on July 31, 2022 by mayor Rama.
THE REAL SCORE ON OIL CRISIS: THERE IS AN ‘EMERGENCY’
‘National energy emergency’ declared by the government, even as President Marcos Jr. promises ‘flow of oil.’ DOE concedes supply will last only until June 30. Transport strikers charge that the PBBM has failed to control oil prices.
THE country is totally, or almost 100 percent, dependent on imported oil. Transport fares, freight costs and prices of goods and services swing with any convulsion in the oil market. We are vulnerable to any oil shock.
No assurance of return to “normal” anytime soon for the country’s economy, no just on oil prices but also on cost of all other economic activity.
Claims on basic facts clash, depending upon which political camp is talking.
President BBM and Department of Energy had claimed there was no supply crisis even as industry stakeholders and transport groups had insisted on a crisis, impending if not already in progress.
OIL SHOCK USED TO ARGUE
against VP Sara impeachment and trial and hosting the 49th Asean summit in November.
WOULD coping with the oil crisis disable most other activities of the Government, such as doing a constitutional task or a function in the country’s relations with
other nations?
If it would, then the two activities might be put off for now. Wait, the impeachment and trial are legislative tasks and the Asean hosting is a foreign-relations function that the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Pasay City local government could handle.
The excuses aren’t included in their statement to the House committee on justice, yet they’re used in the public debate on the issue. There’s an oil crisis, so we must not have an impeachment and trial. Priorities, opposers hark, as if one must exclude the other.
OIL CRISIS ALSO USED TO DISTRACT
the nation from, or bury the issue of, the trillion-peso loss on flood control funds. 11 Cebu legislators still not cleared.
OF the P2 trillion allocated for flood control in a span of 15 years, P1 trillion may have been stolen, with only 40 percent of public funds going to actual construction.
During the entire Duterte administration, between 2017 and 2019, over P330 billion was spent on flood control, much of it producing ghost or substandard projects.
Few charges have been filed against suspected and self-confessed culprits but most of the “big fish” have still to be prosecuted.
Investigation of the “allocable” funds of 11 Cebu congressmen and congresswomen, current and past, still has to publish its results.