Energy Secretary Jose Almendras: The Logic of Philippine Oil Prices

Energy Secretary Jose Almendras made a big fool of himself last night over at TV Patrol. Noli de Castro asked him a very simple question which he failed to answer---when will we implement a cap in oil prices? 


De Castro explained that the people are really complaining over the irrational rise of pump oil prices. Imagine the policy of allowing big time oil companies to raise their prices depending on current crude oil price. 


Oil companies brought their stock a week ago, and stored it in their facilities. Based on DOE logic, if they use these old stocks now, the selling price would have to be the prevailing or current crude oil price. Meaning, this stupid DOE allows oil companies to buy oil at US$ 80/barrel last week and charge it to us by $ 110/barrel just because it is the prevailing price in the global market.


Stupid. Greedy. Evil.


And this government allows this to happen because of its neo-liberal economic policy of allowing free market forces to dictate the prices in the market. 


Also, appointing a former company executive as government's energy official is a wrong move. Almendras' mind is geared towards profits and sustainability--not about taking measures to ensure the protection of the people's welfare. 


I am not against company profits--what I am against is the irrational rise of prices due mainly to greed.


Senator Ralph Recto is correct---these oil companies should actually be asked or even forced to by government not to further raise their pump prices. Government's constitutional police powers allows it to restrain the greed of these companies. 


Now, there are two things government has to do to contain this situation:


1. Stop collecting VAT from oil temporarily; or
2. Put a cap on the price of pump oil

What would shock us Mr President

What would shock us, Mr. President?

We’ll be shocked when we see you, and your Cabinet members, asking for our forgiveness on behalf of your kind and kindred.

We will be extremely shocked if we see you and your Cabinet members, eating noodles every single day in Malacanang, like us.

When we see you, Mr. President and your cabinet receiving only your salaries and not accepting those big billion peso bribes from those devils that lurk inside those Spanish walls. 

Those devils will appear before you as members of God's choir, with their aquiline noses pointed high up and their alabaster skins glowing with Glutathione injections. They are the new men in barongs, with their folders tugged in their sweaty armpits, and with their yellow ribbons plastered in those starched suits.

They will promise to alleviate our thirst with their new, more improved dam technology. They will astound you with their ideas on how to make our dams full of water. You will be mesmerized by how they tell their stories of success, of how other countries do it and how we lag behind.

Some will promise you continuous supply of electricity to power our electric fans and dusty television sets. Forget about nuclear power, they will try to say. The new “in” is coal fired plants.

Forget about 3gs, we now live in 5. Don’t ever consider solar power, they will say. The sun sets every single day, how then will it power homes at night?

When we see you and your Cabinet listening, even trying to grasp our language, or what we mean when we say "pagbabago" as something different from "change" or what we really meant when we tell you we are "pagod na sa mga pangako" as something alien from " we are tired from promises".

These past few years, we have developed our own language, different from the ones you hear your Cabinet secretaries speak or what you speak.

You want to shock us?

File those cases against these devils. Haul them all to jail. Let some rot, as an example. Most of those who stole our monies make them pay by their lives. Line them up. Shoot every single one. Make them your target practice every single week. Those rounds you spent in firing ranges, make every one worth its value.

Haul their families, parade them in the Luneta. It does not pay to be a big-time thief. Shame them for us, Mr. President, for we bear their sins every single day.

For every penny they stole, you ask us to repay them back. You intend to raise taxes that are the reason why you want to tell us that all those monies are gone.

Is that social justice?

Let these thieves cough up what they stole, every single centavo, Mr. President. That is social justice.

Let their families be shamed, not us. Every single day, we live in humiliating circumstances, caused not by us, but by these men who steal what are for us.

Why do you ask us to bear the sins of these thieves? Their sins reach the highest heavens, and God will give us our revenge. Yet, you, God’s anointed, should do your duty—make them pay us back while they are still breathing here. God will deal with them in the afterlife.

If these thieves cannot bring back what they stole, let generations of their families pay for it. Is it justice for you to allow us to live miserably while these scums live in their palatial houses, filled with gold and silver, while, we, the People eke out an existence, like malnourished dogs ready for slaughter?

We live in our slums and walk like ghosts every single day, while these thieves in barong go to their country houses and feast like sloths with our monies? Is that justice?

We are barely able to buy food while these scums waste 5,000 pesos every single day with a round of golf?

Mr. President, eighty eight percent of us, believe in you. We feel your sincerity. We feel you. It is therefore time that you feel us. Time for you to go to our mattresses and feel our daily pain, our feverish anguish while we see our children suffering from hunger and we cannot do anything about it. 

Get us out of our senses so that we will again, be shocked. That all of these things are not normal. That this abnormality we see in our lives every single day is not life. That this is not life, but hell. That we are constantly living a hellish life makes the afterlife, our heaven.