BY:DONALD SEVILLA
REWRITING THE SCRIPT
The Oil Deregulation Law has come under intense scrutiny due to the Middle East conflict. Lawmakers have expressed grave concern accordingly.
So why don’t they rush/ prioritize to amend or repeal the law, putting a new, balanced mechanism in place rather than wasting time on politicking and partisanship?
As suggested, emergency powers can be exercised broadly by the Executive at this time to protect our people.
Yet as sure as the sun rises when the dust settles and things go back to normal, we can watch the balance sheets of the big oil players shout billions in profits.
Perhaps we should tax them more accordingly, not poor, hapless Juan de la Cruz. It seems that government is not keen on temporarily abolishing the VAT and excise taxes on fuel products particularly on diesel and gasoline like what other countries have done to cushion the impact of oil price hikes on consumers.
Our politicians are more concerned about the projected tax shortfall which could arise from such cuts and the impending impeachment of the Vice President than other pressing matters.
DOE was not quick to act to address the fuel issues and is now playing catch up. Meanwhile our people are already up to the brim trying to make ends meet.
Our country lacks the infrastructure to store strategic fuel reserves to support our economy yet we have lost billions to corruption for ghost infrastructure projects.
Our priorities have been misplaced but thanks to the resilience of our people who suffer in silence, we have managed to survive.
But how long and far do we have to tighten our belts to the point of strangling ourselves?
If we continue the course government is leading us, we will definitely fall off the cliff. Many are already dismayed and discouraged at the way things are being handled and managed.
Yet the fuel crisis is just one of the many problems we will encounter in the future. But how we ride the troubled waters through, depends a lot on good stewardship by those we put in charge.
Many things happening now should make us reflect on how to make our country’s future sustainable So much is at stake and we missed out on many opportunities in the past.
But unless we shed off extra baggage that slow us down, we cannot move swiftly forward. Politics and too much politicking have weighed us down significantly.
Yet we could do better and we deserve better. The fuel crisis by far is a litmus test for our leaders to see if they have the ability to live up to their mandate and get us out of the problems we dug ourselves into!