Media Release
March 17, 2000

Amid today’s nationwide protests and transport strikes, the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) renewed its thoroughgoing exposition of the imperialist stranglehold of the oil industry, pointing at the monopoly of foreign multinational corporations as the cultprit behind the endless hikes of petroleum prices. Aside from calling for a rollback of pump prices, Bayan called for the scrapping of the Oil Deregulation Law and the nationalization of the oil industry as the apt long-term solutions to the problem.

“US-dominated oil companies cannot escape the fact that they monopolize the local and global oil industry,” Rafael Mariano, chairperson of both Bayan and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas.

“No thanks to this monopoly, these vultures control everything from importation, refininf, stocking and marketing, to distribution and retail,” Mariano said.

“To reverse this, we need to nationalize the industry by busting the oil cartel and the deregulation policy. By making it a state-led industry, we will take away the monopoly control from these multinational companies and put the people’s interest first,” he said.

US campanies Texaco and Chevron own 100 percent of Caltex while Shell is under the Royal Dutch Shell of the Netherlands and United Kingdom. The US-Saudi Arabia company Aramco control Petron.

Contrary to government claims, oil industry deregulation only strengthened the monopoly of the oil cartel. Unlike common Filipinos, the three oil companies in the oil cartel also gained immensely from more profits.

In the first half of 1999, the three companies already pocketed P3.8 billion compared to their earnigs of P6.1 billion in 1998. Not included are their extra earnings from overpricing, transfer pricing and illegal tax credits.

Only 64 stations are operated by the “new players” while a gigantic 3,187 are owned by the cartel. Thses new players also have no choice but to buy their stocks from the cartel.#