Guingona bucks sale of government’s stake in Petron

Vice President Teofisto Guingona joined yesterday the snowballing opposition against the plan of the Department of Finance to sell government’s remaining 40-percent stake in Petron Corp.

In an interview, Guingona said he would oppose the plan to sell the government shares in Petron since it is "a viable and earning enterprise."

The vice president said he did not see any compelling need to dispose of government’s 40-percent stake in the country’s largest oil refiner, echoing the position of lawmakers who maintained the strategic importance of keeping the government’s share in Petron to keep petroleum prices stable.

Guingona backed the position earlier taken by Senators Edgardo Angara and Ralph Recto that Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho should drop the plan to sell the government shares in Petron because the shares would not fetch a good price in the current depressed market.

Camacho had proposed to sell the Petron shares to fund the ballooning budget deficit, but both Angara and Recto said Camacho would be better off striving harder to improve tax collection rather than selling government assets.

The Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), which holds government’s 40-percent stake in Petron, earned P526.5 million from the P.15 per share cash dividend paid by Petron last year.

In 1999, PNOC earned P750 million from dividends of P.20 per share. PNOC owns 3.75 billion shares in Petron.

Recto said now would the wrong time to privatize the Petron shares since it will yield only less than a fourth of the P25 billion which government raised when it sold 60 percent of the company in 1995. – Sammy Santos