DOE goes online on oil issues

CEBU, Philippines - The Department of Energy (DOE) is set to launch an interactive website to update the public everything about oil before the year ends.

DOE- Oil Industry Management Bureau Director Zenaida Monsada said that the website will be www.langis.org.

Monsada said that the website is still being developed as of the moment and it aims at giving the public the opportunity to ask queries on the increase of oil prices, suggesting an amount for the increase and anything about oil, which will be answered by DOE employees themselves.

Monsada recently visited Cebu for a multi-sectoral advocacy campaign on downstream oil industry which aims at creating and capacitating groups of communicators to disseminate the benefits and developments in the downstream oil industry.

Monsada presented the overview of the downstream oil industry before the representatives of the different local government units in Central Visayas, private companies, stakeholders and Philippine Information Agency personnel.

Monsada also discussed the main objective of the Republic Act 8479 or the “Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act of 1998”.

She said that the law aimed at ensuring a truly competitive market under a regime of fair prices, adequate and continuous supply of environmentally-clean and high quality petroleum products.

The law also encourages competition and the entry of new players in the market, she said.

Monsada explained that deregulation of the downstream oil industry, particularly when it comes to pricing and compliance of gas stations and LPG establishments to standards on quality and quantity, has always been a contentious topic to discuss.

DOE, she said, has conceptualized and implemented various strategies, with the volatile movement of international oil prices brought about by geo-political concerns and speculations in the world market as well as the public’s perception that the agency is incapable of protecting the consumers against price shocks and the unscrupulous trade practices.

Reason why for the past years DOE has always been consistent in creating awareness among its stakeholders, which includes the LGUs, LPP retail outlets, LPG establishments and the general public, by conducting information, education and communications (IEC) campaigns on downstream oil industry.

Monsada also made it clear that DOE is not to be blamed for oil price increase because their mandate is not to fix the price but only to monitor oil prices.

She also said that for those oil stations that do not follow the regular price increase and will go beyond what was expected and will be considered giving unreasonable price based on the Energy Regulatory Board (ERB) formula, the owners will be given a penalty of a fine of P250,000 to P500,000 and six years of imprisonment.  (FREEMAN)