RP Gas more expensive than US costliest gas

Jarius Bondoc, a good friend, wrote in his column today at the Philippine Star, how expensive our gasoline pump prices are compared with the costliest US gasoline pump prices. Are we saying now that living here is far more expensive than living there in the States? Why do we still allow these giant oil companies to cook us by our own lard?


Let me re-print what he wrote today:

CNN reported last Monday gas prices to be falling for two straight weeks, despite spikes in crude oil rates. Average price of regular gasoline was $3.29 a gallon, the Lundberg Survey found. That’s 9 cents down from two weeks earlier, and 18 cents less than end-October. While crude rates rose $3.55 a barrel over the two weeks, gas prices fell. This was due to “shrinkage in profit margins of the downstream portion of the oil industry, that is, refiners and retailers,” publisher Trilby Lundberg said. “They were unable to pass on the higher oil rates because American motorists’ demand for gasoline continues to shrink due to hard economic conditions.”

It’s unlikely gas prices will continue to fall, though, Lundberg said, for refiners and retailers “will not be able to sustain losses on and on. It will depend on what crude oil does.”

The Lundberg Survey tallies prices at thousands of gas stations across America. The city with the lowest average last Dec. 5 was Albuquerque, New Mexico, at $2.84 a gallon; highest was San Francisco, at $3.67 a gallon.

Let’s compare that to Philippine pump prices, say, Seaoil unleaded gasoline, at P50.99 per liter in Metro Manila last Dec. 6. San Francisco’s $3.67 a gallon, divided by 4 (liters to a gallon), times 43 (pesos to a dollar) equals P39.45 per liter. SanFo, America’s most expensive gas city, is P11.54 cheaper per liter than Metro Manila. How come?

I think it is time to OCCUPY THESE CENTERS OF CORPORATE GREED AND MADNESS by those who want nothing more than fairness and equality in market prices.

Occupy Mendiola

Scores of young students and dozens of workers were injured when Manila policemen dispersed them today and a few days ago. These patriotic students were just trying to express themselves when they mobilized thousands from their ranks and decided to try to "occupy Mendiola"--the symbolic bridge that separates Claro M. Recto from the very gates of Malacanang.

These students, together with those brave workers, were just expressing their opposition to the government's plan to decrease spending on education and the rising costs of food stuffs and tuition fees. Instead of sending a representative from the palace to at least dialogue with the protesting students, what this government did was send in those crack troops, with batons and water cannons to literally hose the students away with dirty water.

As of presstime, several students were arrested, together with laborers.

I don't know with you, but, at least I know I'm still living in a democracy. Or not?

What's so wrong with allowing students to do those flanking moves at Mendiola bridge? Will Malacanang lose a day if these students and fellow sympathizers from the workers' ranks would rant, play Commie music and even do those planking moves? Will traffic be affected that much, seeing that there is another route that police use when situations like these arose?

I don't see anything wrong with allowing students to encamp at Mendiola, spend their Christmas there or just literally make the entire bridge their home. Malacanang is several meters away. An encampment at Mendiola will not even affect security at the palace.

IN the UNited States, hundreds of thousand of people have been allowed to express themselves, hence, this creeping movement called Occupy Wall Street.

In times like these, where people are hungry and millions more are jobless, suppressing these democratically protected actions are downright stupid.

It just shows how paranoid this administration is, that within those Spanish-era walls live people without total regard to the precepts of democracy.