rollback!!!

[niky]

*karlbo: small oil entrepreneurs who will give free carwashes with a full tank of gas? Game ako diyan.... kaya lang ubos ang gasolina ko pagpunta sa place niyo...

You and niky should start doing it...

I've been driving for the past 15 years. When I started driving, gas was less than a third of the price it was now. I still commute when I'm not carrying fifty pounds of laundry and baby stuff with me, but the needs of business mean that I often have to drive. When it's personal business, though, I walk when my destination is just one or two kilometers from where I am (I used to walk six kilometers from UPDiliman to my wife's house in Cubao, and my daily walk in high school was about three kilometers). I take the LRT. I take the MRT. I take the jeep or a bus when I have to. I don't take tricycles anymore, because, seriously... if you're close enough to trike, you're close enough to walk.

Being from UP, I've also had the pleasure of getting to know the leadership and membership of the political left up-close and personal. I've been friends with some of them. We didn't often see eye-to-eye, and some of us debated endlessly about things.

I can't claim to be "poor" or "makabayan"... simply because I'm an American by birthright and half-American by blood (my mother is 100% non-Filipino)... and I grew up in a priveleged family, but I have lived the Pinoy life... gotten sick from eating 7 peso goto and drinking tap water... stayed at cruddy dormitories... gone to school in slippers. I married my classmate from UP. We lived in an apartment with one bare lightbulb and just enough space to stretch your legs for a while while waiting for her contract to expire so we could move back to my place. That whole time (and the ten years of high school and college before it), I was commuting to go to work.

I can appreciate both sides of the transport coin, thus... the sheer hypocrisy of it all. Their inability to admit that part of the reason that they're losing money is because they can't effectively police their own ranks. That they're losing millions to members of their fraternity who engage in colorum practices... that they waste thousands of liters of gasoline from ineffective terminal practices (waiting half-an-hour for the last passenger... lining up three deep... line-cutting... "singit") and driving practices (jackrabbit starts and stops, driving too fast, driving too slow while "trawling" for passengers).

They could save up to 30% of their fuel costs by practicing effective management. I've only seen a very few number of TODAs and JODAs practice this... and certain bus companies. Those which try to avoid oversaturating their routes, controlling the number of vehicles deployed at any time.

And it's this deployment that hurts the most. Wanna know why they lose money? Because the LTFRB issues too many damn licenses! And doesn't control the unlicensed PUVs, either. When you see nearly a hundred Jeepneys parked on the side of the street on just one route, you know something is seriously wrong with our transport grid.

Part of that, is as we discussed in the PhUV groups... the lack of government support for grassroots vehicle assembly programs, the lack of coordination, central organization and standardization amongst fabricators that ultimately doomed the assemblers of ultra-FXs and Jeepneys. This leaves us with a transport grid made up mostly of aging and obsolete jeepneys and dangerous, reconditioned, surplus buses from other countries.

And I've seen how the left does its propaganda work. Doesn't matter whether they have a good argument or not... as long as they can "stick it" to "the man", they will. I'll agree when they get mad at Gloria for messing with the constitution... but they protest everything. Even measures that we can take to ease the plight and suffering of Filipinos are taboo if the word "capitalism" is in there, anywhere. Help your fellow man, any way you can... but if that help involves making money... no way!

Wanna ask the ex-workers of closed export-zone factories what they think of that idea? Those who lost their jobs in the left's "war" on capitalism? If anyone's setting up a business... even if it means jobs for people... it's "evil".

It's a shame all that money being spent to wage protests and issue media sound bytes isn't being used to better effect... like to set-up cooperative gas stations that sell diesel at lower prices to PUV drivers? (it's been done, it sometimes works, it sometimes doesn't... where it doesn't, it doesn't because they don't charge enough to maintain the station well).

And that's the funny thing... transport groups already pay less than the rest of us... who're paying E-VAT on top of the price of our gasoline to support them. And they pay even less with independent players... or at cooperatives... whose gas stations are everywhere in the metro... yet they're still complaining about the big three?

------

It's not profiteering businessmen alone that we have to blame for our current conditions... it's everyone. Everyone who ignores the law, who cuts his fellow Pinoy's throats for proft, whether he be a bigwig or a jeepney driver. Those who politicize. Who voice out one thing and do another (c'mon, Noli... it's obvious)... The culture of corruption and mediocrity that prevent us from moving forward... that make opening up new businesses and livelihood opportunites an immense struggle against red tape.

That's why I said before that it was useless to boycott merely the big three. Why? Because local gas stations are run by local entrepreneurs, like karlbo, who are just out to make an honest buck. The money you pay them supports local business and the local refineries and Filipino workers at local gas stations and refineries. Paying money to small players sends your money (after the local owner takes his cut) straight to overseas refineries... people who don't have to worry about doing business in the Philippines or paying wages to Pinoy workers, paying Philippine taxes or sharing the profit with Pinoy businessmen.

And wherever you buy gas, you're still paying a hefty chunk of that money to OPEC.

So... if you want to stick it to OPEC... simple. Don't buy gas, period.

But do pass by Karl's to get your car washed. Help send his workers' kids to college... please.

[karlbo]

* niky - very well said..

OT: are you going on saturday? its going to be fun. i'll ask baiskee if his going too.

[Hanren]

I'm still surprised that nobody else here was buying gasoline during the time of the OPSF. And nobody remembers that under OPSF, when fuel prices went up, it HURT. When oil prices skyrocketed early this year, local fuel companies raised prices by 50c to 1 peso per week instead of raising it 10-15 pesos right away... under OPSF, prices stayed low until the OPSF was depleted, then they went up a lot, all at once.



And under the OPSF, transport groups would protest to the government to allow oil companies to lower prices, prices which stayed high to regenerate the OPSF.

I can't believe the children of the same people who protested the OPSF are now angling for government to execute price controls on gasoline again. The insanity...



Yeah. Way back in the 80's, when it was still 20 pesos to a dollar. I can't even remember the last time I paid less than 25 pesos for diesel.

if you want a perspective on oil and gasoline prices, you can simply go down to the National Library and pull up a selection of newspapers from the past thirty years... the transport groups have complained about the way gasoline is priced for decades... whether it's privately driven or government controlled, the effect is still the same... we're always paying too much.

My commutes used to cost just a hundred bucks... now I'm paying nearly 500 bucks for the same distance... and even if I use LPG, it's still a 300 peso trip. It sucks, but all the hand-wringing, fist-waving and rock-throwing ain't going to move the guys who ultimately decide how much gasoline is worth... OPEC.

The only way to hurt OPEC? Stop buying gasoline. And thanks to the stock market crash... that's what a lot of people are doing. Want 30 peso gasoline? Wait another few months... it's coming...

Sir Niky, naabutan mo pa pla yung time ng OPSF? I used to hear that thing - about people's tax money being used to subsidize the fluctuating oil prices during that time. Sa time ata ni Marcos yon di ba? He made a political decision at that time.

Well, OPEC is feeling the brunt right now and are thinking of cutting their output. But that would only be counterproductive because it would initially inflate prices at a time when demand is going down. Then there's also talk at BBC that Russia is planning to join OPEC (Russia's the latest victim of our Global economic crisis). Somehow, there's still justice out there..

If, by our collective efforts, we can't force the big three to give in to their "social conscience", then another force may just do it for us..(force us to change our lifestyle..again )

[oliver1013]

Sa problema ng bayan, bisikleta ang kailangan

[Gerbo]

CRUDE OIL is a traded commodity. As such it is subject to supply and demand. For the last 50 years oil-producing nations took advantage of this increasingly valuable commodity---the so-called "black gold".

Wise governments in the Middle East have substantially increased their treasury from the revenues it generated. Traditionally, the biggest users are the Americans whose lifestyle is synonymous with extravagance. Just look at their SUVs.

But time have changed. Politically, the US now loses its sphere of influence and could not put their whims on these states. Also it faced competition from the Chinese. The oil-producing countries are becoming less subservient and buffered by their richness invest on other things financially---and their clout increases. Take a look at OPEC-members who now owns financial institutions, assets, etc. in foreign lands.

So whats the point? The only time oil will become cheap is when it becomes IRRELEVANT which at this point is VERY HARD to do and still a wishful thinking. We are currently neck-deep on its dependence.

A former Saudi oil minister once said --the "Stone Age" did not end because we ran out of stones.

If we can only accelerate finding alternatives to crude oil and use such technology in a large scale.....it will cease to be of such high value.

BTW, the talk of how much reserves are still there is a TOP SECRET. Analysts can only made conjectures. And the idea that it is drying up fast is pushing speculations more to jack up the prices. But it is currently tempered by the slowing world economy as demand will decrease as citizens spend less in trying times.

[creepy]

So... if you want to stick it to OPEC... simple. Don't buy gas, period.

Someone says something sensible for a change.

Not another inane "boycott the three oil companies" proposal.

[jpdm]

Someone says something sensible for a change.

Not another inane "boycott the three oil companies" proposal.

Nonsense.

The only sensible thing said here in this thread is for these oil companies to roll back their prices, period.

[A121]

Nonsense.

The only sensible thing said here in this thread is for these oil companies to roll back their prices, period.

I think it will be a lot sensible to look at the oil companies' actual computation and not some third hand information. The guys here are just presenting why there are no one-time big-time roll backs.

Anyway, the big three will be rolling back their prices this evening.

[jpdm]

I think it will be a lot sensible to look at the oil companies' actual computation and not some third hand information. The guys here are just presenting why there are no one-time big-time roll backs.

Anyway, the big three will be rolling back their prices this evening.

Let us see.

[karlbo]

I think it will be a lot sensible to look at the oil companies' actual computation and not some third hand information. The guys here are just presenting why there are no one-time big-time roll backs.

Anyway, the big three will be rolling back their prices this evening.

huh? tonight?

pero thursday palang. usually friday night - sat morning ang rollback. hhhmmm..