High fuel prices causes rift in Malacañang

First off, a very Happy Birthday to our publisher Juanito Jabat and my mother-in-law Fe Rosello, who were born during the Feast of St. John the Baptist a.k.a. San Juan Bautista, which is the fiesta of my old home in Barangay Parian. My neighbors in Capitol Hills also have San Juan as their Patron Saint. We may have moved out of Parian but we couldn’t move away from the San Juan Fiesta.

Also today, at the Parian Plaza, the new Parian Park Project will be unveiled, which is funded by the Department of Tourism (DoT), to spruce up the surroundings of the Heritage Monument that sits in front of the Parian Plaza. Barangay Parian officials led by Capt. Mark Balaga and Barangay Councilman Henry Uy will give recognition for the support of Tourism Secretary Ace Durano by bestowing on him as an “Adopted Son of Parian.” I fully concur with the honor that they will give to Ace Durano, who whenever he has time in Cebu, always attend many heritage activities. With this Parian Park Project we can expect more tourists to flock to this old quarter of Cebu, where the old Cebuano families used to live.

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Once more the Big 3 Oil companies have increased their fuel prices, while totally ignoring our pleas in Cebu where we continue to pay extremely high prices for our fuel products compared to the rest of the country. While our pleas are falling on deaf ears, at least this has now caused a rift within the cabinet of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA), specifically between Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto and Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Angelo Reyes. This all started when Sec. Recto questioned the accuracy of the pump prices of fuel which he believes to be at least P8 per liter higher than it should be.

As if on cue, Sec. Reyes (some ventured to say that he is acting as unofficial spokesman for the oil companies) accused Sec. Recto of grandstanding and preparing for the elections. He further accused the latter of creating uncertainty in the market and totally disregarded his computation of the oil prices. What we expect our DoE Secretary to do is to go back to the oil companies to recheck their prices, instead of waging a word war and falsely accusing a fellow Cabinet Secretary.

No doubt, Sec. Recto is a man of his word as a week ago, he called me to comment on the article we wrote about this issue in The Philippine Star and assured me that he will not leave this issue unanswered. Indeed, his word war against Sec. Reyes is mute testimony of his concern for the problems that we are having with our high fuel prices.

Because of their very public spat, Malacañang has intervened with Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and Secretary of the Cabinet Silvestre Bello III tasked to solve their differences. But what differences are these people going to resolve when Sec. Recto believes that oil prices are just too high, including the prices that we Cebuanos have to pay, while Sec. Reyes toes the line of the Big 3 Oil companies?

In response to this attempt to quell this word war between Cabinet Secretaries, Sec. Recto insisted that he would continue to focus on efforts to help consumers have lower fuel prices instead of “stooping down to the level” of Energy Sec. Angie Reyes, whom Sec. Recto says refuses to face the issue of maintaining transparency in the pricing of fuel. If any, this is the problem with the Arroyo Cabinet; there is no transparency despite her efforts to say that her government is a government of consultation.

Since we are not getting any cooperation from Sec. Angie Reyes, then Cebuanos should up the ante. Perhaps it is time for our pro-Gloria congressmen to ask for his resignation for he has not helped the plight of Cebuanos and only helped the Big 3 Oil companies. Cebu has supported Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from day one. The least she can do is give Cebuanos a better explanation why we should be paying higher prices for our fuel compared to the rest of the Philippines.

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Here’s another reminder for people who want to get a taste of Information Technology (IT). On June 25 to 27, the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (CCCI) will be holding the Cebu ICT 2009 Conference and Exhibition at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC). This year’s theme is “Cebu: e-merging Island of Innovation.” This aptly describes the position of Cebu as the number one emerging outsourcing destination in the World. We were in Hong Kong last May with Jerry Rapes (chairman of ICT 2009 convention) to attend a similar ICT Convention and we learned much from attending such conferences. So see you at the CICC.

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