BY REGINA BENGCO

PRESIDENT Arroyo yesterday ordered Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes to call an energy summit following the rise in world crude price to more than $100 per barrel due to a drop in US stockpiles.

Oil hovered at about $99 a barrel yesterday.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the summit of energy stakeholders was called to "enhance policies and programs, attract investments in technology, launch development projects that would impact favorably on energy supplies and prices while helping significantly arrest climate change."

Bunye also said Arroyo directed the energy department to coordinate with the trade and finance departments to "come up with recommendation on a possible reduction of tariff on oil."

The tariff on oil products stands at 3 percent. Reyes said last year the energy department is not considering tariff reduction because it would result in a P400 million revenue loss per month.

Deputy presidential spokesman Lorelei Fajardo said the energy department is not expecting an increase in local oil prices at least over the weekend. She said the $100 per barrel oil price is the benchmark of the US but the Philippines gets its supply from Dubai.

Fajardo said the news should not cause any alarm and appealed to the public to avoid speculations.

"A reasonable oil price adjustment might be implemented after the hike in oil price is fairly evaluated," she said.

She said government has taken steps to maintain local oil prices at current levels and that safety nets are being put in place to cushion the impact of a sudden price increase.

She said the energy department is coordinating with oil companies and is expecting the audit report within the month to make sure that any further increase would be "reasonable and gradual."

At the House, Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño challenged colleagues to pass measures that would give people immediate relief from the "continuing rampant price hikes in oil prices, including liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), kerosene and all other oil products."

Casiño, along with Reps. Satur Ocampo (Bayan Muna), Crispin Beltran (Anakpawis), Luz Ilagan and Liza Maza (Gabriela) have filed House Bills 3029 - An Act Regulating the Downstream Petroleum Industry and for Other Related Purposes; 3030 - An Act Instituting Centralized Procurement of Petroleum in the Country; and 3031 - An Act Renationalizing Petron Corporation as "necessary long-term measures that will address the problem of manipulative pricing schemes by oil companies."

HB 3029 restores government control over oil prices. HB 3030 mandates the government to procure oil products from the cheapest sources available in the world. HB 3031 re-acquires the state’s majority stake in Petron for an "effective market leverage."

The measures are yet to be deliberated upon before the committee on energy chaired by President Arroyo’s son, Rep. Juan Miguel "Mikey" Arroyo (Lakas, Pampanga).

Casiño said if the House can railroad tax bills and other government revenue measures, "there is no reason why it cannot enact house bills that aim to protect Filipino consumers from the oil price shocks in the world market."

"All the oil companies in the country will again increase prices of all its products with the surging world market prices as their justification. The Arroyo government cannot continue lying to the public in saying it cannot do anything to stop the price hikes," he said.

Tariff reductions on oil products, the militant congressman said, will only delay the price hikes but the enactment of their proposed laws "will give the public a fighting chance to defend the country and the economy from the greed of oil companies that dictate the world market."

Casiño noted the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) has said the price of crude oil will result in a new jolt to oil-dependent economies like the Philippines which the United Nations said is among the countries that are most vulnerable to oil price shocks because it is heavily dependent on imported oil. – With Wendell Vigilia