Boycott the Big Four (Petron, Shell, Chevron, Total)= Cheaper Local Oil Prices?

[niky]

Compared to oil, PLDT products are deemed non-essential, luho lang.

Any increase in energy prices hurt much much more.

Yeah... hurt... but the fact that PLDT is more profitable than all the oil companies combined tells you one thing:

People are willing to spend thousands of pesos a month on a non-essential item... telephones.

Yet we start complaining when oil goes up?

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The big problem with a boycott is that it's patently ridiculous.

The driving factor for expensive oil is complex. It's not only the loose dollar, it's also the huge demand for oil.

China and India are experiencing industrial growth at an alarming rate. They need everything they can get their hands on... oil, steel, concrete, electricity... everything! And they need it now.now.now!!!

If the entire Philippines were to boycott oil... no problem... the suppliers of crude will happily sell it to China. Anyone with an eye on material prices will know this. Ever check the price of steel? Thanks to China, it now goes up every week!

Our local "overpricing" isn't bad. In fact, we have one of the lowest oil prices anywhere... and it's only going up now because of the "under-recovery" the oil-companies have been experiencing for the last few months. We can't compare to the US, because US gas prices are fixed at a much lower rate than the rest of the world because of lower taxes.

Don't take my word for it, though... here's a link:

http://www.yehey.com/news/Article.aspx?id=220465

“Our pump prices are lower than many of our neighbors,” Mrs. Arroyo said, adding the local cost of diesel, at P55.9 a liter, compared favorably with New Zealand’s P67, Hong Kong’s P71, and Thailand’s P60.

And that's even including the 12% EVAT that the transport groups want us to trash.

Elsewhere, prices are even higher. British diesel, last I remember, was around 100 pesos per liter.

For a so-called "Thinktank", I think IBON has completely missed the mark. Yes, the oil companies are in it to make a profit, but that's what business is. Profit. If you don't profit, you can't improve. And if you can't improve services, that means poor service, poor product, etcetera. That's what happened to the businesses sequestered by the Marcoses before. Over time, service deteriorated, terribly. The service we get from the "overpriced" Meralco and the privatized PLDT is far and away much better than it was before.

And anyone who wants government to control oil prices probably has a very short memory... I can remember the time when transport groups were striking to remove the OPSF... because when world oil prices would go down, the local prices would stay high because the government needed to rebuild the OPSF again, as it would be depleted to subsidize gas prices when world prices went up.

So... control prices... how? Subsidize them? With what? With the E-VAT that we would no longer pay on oil? Though the government isn't a business, it actually needs money to run. No money, no service.

The driving force for prices are demand-oriented. When China is no longer willing to pay for more expensive oil, prices will finally start to level off. Until then...

But then... it makes sense. Who funds the leftist groups? It used to be that the Chinese would send money to fund the CPP during the Cold War, right?

And if the CPP convinces the Filipino people to boycott gas... who wins? China! More gas for them!