For sale: Petron?

Tycoon Ramon S. Ang, apparently piqued at a proposal to have Petron Corporation sold back to the government, said he had no problem with that.

The usually unflappable president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the San Miguel Corp. conglomerate said that the government could have the oil company through a five-year installment payment scheme.

Selling back Petron to the government, Ang said, was no problem with him.

He made the statement during a hearing of the House committee on ways and means.

Some congressmen identified with the Left have filed a bill seeking to re-nationalize Petron.

“I swear, if the government wants it back, just say it and I will sell it back to you. Prepare the valuation immediately,” Ang told the committee.

The Left-leaning congressmen apparently thought Ang would be perturbed by their bill to buy back Petron, the country’s biggest oil refiner and retailer.

Petron was sold to private companies in 1994 in its initial public offering.

Ang warned that the company lost P18 billion in 2020.

If Petron could lose that much money despite being run by Ang, who has the Midas touch, how much more could it lose if the government got it back?

The government is a lousy money manager of business.

Many companies the government once owned (and are now in private hands) were losing heavily because of mismanagement and embezzlement.

The Manila Hotel, Philippine National Bank and Philippine Air Lines are examples of mismanaged companies – and were not the only ones. These firms were once the cash cows of corrupt government officials.

The bill seeking to buy back Petron, acquired by Ang’s SMC from another private company, comes in the wake of calls for the suspension or reduction of excise tax on fuel products.

Prices of petroleum products have been going up since August because of oil price hikes in the world market.

When fuel prices go up, food, travel and transport costs also go up.

But why blame the oil companies for hiking the prices of their fuel products when these price rates are dictated by what’s happening in the world market?

SMC’s Ang said that the Big Three oil companies – Petron, Shell and Chevron – are losing to “small players” which have cornered 40 percent of the fuel market, by selling gasoline and diesel at P10 lower than what is being sold by the three giants.

The food, beverage and oil magnate sarcastically said the small players were probably “very, very efficient (operators).”

Ang said – again with sarcasm in his voice – that there was no need to suspend the excise tax because the small players have solved the problem of high fuel prices; they are inexplicably underselling the Big Three.

*      *    *

If the government is in dire need of funds, why doesn’t it demand from Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. to pay P141 billion in back excise taxes? The amount includes interest, surcharges and penalties.

The Department of Finance recently ordered the suspension of Shell’s importation of fuel products until it pays the taxes it owes the government.

However, the DOF’s suspension order has been held in abeyance by people at the Bureau of Customs, who are supposed to carry it out.

My sources in the customs bureau said that a mere undersecretary of another Cabinet department was holding the order.

Why is this undersecretary so powerful that he could rescind the DOF order?

*      *    *

Is a politician allegedly coddling Joel Pinawin, intelligence chief of Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS)?

Pinawin is being hunted by the authorities for a failed extortion attempt during an entrapment operation put in motion on Nov. 5 by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), right in his office.

Pinawin’s assistant, Warren Reyes, was caught red-handed receiving the extortion money for his boss.

NBI agents were supposed to go to his residence in a hot pursuit operation, but a powerful politician allegedly interceded with the customs bureau to stop the arresting agents.

According to investigators, Pinawin was in the habit of seizing smuggled goods and demanding money for their release.

Poor Customs Commissioner Leonardo Guerrero! The guy is doing his level best to minimize smuggling at the ports, but he’s surrounded by crooks like Pinawin.

*      *    *

Dismissed police colonel Eduardo Acierto has sent word to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee that he is willing to testify against Michael Yang, former presidential economic adviser and a friend of the President’s.

However, Blue Ribbon committee chairman Dick Gordon is not biting.

Gordon says Acierto, former deputy director of the Drug Enforcement Group of the Philippine National Police (PNP), is a liar.

Gordon says that Acierto, who has linked Yang to drug smuggling, disappeared after he was summoned to testify in the Senate to bolster his claim against the Chinese trader.

Yang is currently being investigated, along with several others, for alleged grossly overpriced face shields, face masks and personal protective equipment (PPE) which he and his friends have sold to the government.

Acierto has been in hiding since 2019 after he was linked to the sale of Russian-made AK-47 assault rifles to some nefarious groups.

He’s also suspected of having had a hand in smuggling magnetic lifters containing billions of pesos in smuggled crystal meth, or shabu, out of the Manila ports.

Why he was allowed by then customs commissioner Isidro Lapeña to go in and out of the customs zone is anybody’s guess.

Acierto and his cohorts in the anti-narcotics community who were involved in drug trafficking seem to make the government’s war on drugs a farce.

Why were the small-time pushers eliminated but the big fish like Acierto and his buddies spared?

*      *      *

Joke! Joke! Joke!

Six-year-old boy: Papa, how come there aren’t any circuses around now?

Father: Because all the clowns got into politics.