Don't take Cebuanos for fools

It's a stinging pain of adding insult to injury, as in putting salt to the wound, that the "Big 3" oil firms - Shell, Petron, and Caltex-Chevron - are recklessly taking Cebuanos for fools.

Long have the Cebuano oil consumers been unreasonably slapped with a P5.00 to P8.00 per liter higher pump price compared to any other elsewhere nationwide. Aggravating the injustice, the "Big 3" invariably are also tactless to seemingly appease, condescendingly, the victimized Cebuanos with explanations and/or platitudes with no sane rhyme or reason.

As aptly put by Congressman Antonio Cuenco, "You are playing lipat-lipat" to Cebu consumers; with the oil firms probably banking on putting one over "promdi" Cebuanos, with their rhetoric and business "blah-blah". The over-abused excuse is the recycled so-called "market forces", or a bigger term "economic fundamentals", or "things uncontrollable", or the "law of supply and demand" factor..

Like any ordinary gas users, let's adopt the street-wise reckoning, as in "tinamban". Starting with alleged "competition" factor as causing the pump price discrepancy… If there's competition among the petroleum suppliers, then the end-result would have been similar low prices in Cebu as in Manila and elsewhere in the country. Given the oil suppliers nationwide are the same - even including small/medium stakeholders - does it mean that they have agreed to gang up on Cebu, while being competitive in other local markets? Or, if stiff competition dictates the Manila cheaper pump price, what about in Mindanao and elsewhere, except Cebu?

Another weak excuse for the overprice in Cebu, is a vague hint of the peso-dollar rate exchange fluctuations. Again, how does such facet affect only the Cebu pump prices as much steeper than anywhere else? Whether the peso-dollar exchange fluctuation is exclusively applied at source of importation, or continues along in transit up to distribution, then the question again is: Why single out Cebu as lone victim to shoulder the much greater burden? Remember that the price difference is P5.00 to P8.00 per liter, not per barrel, or per ton.

Then there's the oft-cited "high cost of production" exponent which mainly goes, most likely, with the refining of crude oil, as well as its incremental overheads. Safely assuming that the refined products shipped from the same refinery plants in the capital region in Luzon to the Visayas and Mindanao, why must Cebu stand out like a sore thumb to get slapped with the lion's share of the high cost of production?

The most plausible basis for the price discrepancy could be the cost of transshipment of refined oil from the common refinery to distribution points. But then, again, this factor is unavailing because how come that the oil retail cost in all Mindanao is cheaper than that of Cebu, given the comparative transshipment variance in distance from the same source or refinery?

For want of a leg to stand on, Chevron's Mike Cabral seemed helplessly candid by saying that Cebu is just "paying the real cost". But, why Cebu only? Indeed, Congressman Eddie R. Gullas hit it smack on the head when he cautioned the "Big 3" "not to make Cebu a glutton for punishment". And, for Congressman Pablo Garcia to explode: "You are trying to fool us".

In recap, Rep. Raul del Mar's suggestion is logical that the cost of oil per liter in Manila plus transshipment cost ought to be the pump price in Cebu, not more.

Meantime, DOE Secretary Angelo Reyes appears still hedging on what steps to take - including legal action as exhorted by Rep. Pablo Garcia - as if biding his time for the controversy to die down on its own. But public perception is loud enough, pointing to where or which side Reyes may have placed his bet. He has a lot of convincing the sensitive Cebuano votes that may not carry him, i.e., should he make a stab for the Senate in 2010.

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