Oil price hikes has Bayan hitting PNoy

Petroleum companies on Monday announced that they are raising pump prices on Tuesday, July 19, prompting a militant group to raise cackles ahead of President Benigno Aquino III’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) next week. Shell Petroleum said that a minute after midnight into Tuesday, it is raising diesel prices by P1.10 per liter, kerosene prices by P1.00 per liter, regular gasoline by P0.60 per liter, and unleaded gasoline by P0.30 per liter. Oil companies Chevron and PTT will follow suit at 6 a.m. on the same day, with the same price-hikes at the pump. They said the price adjustments resulted from the rising prices of oil in the world market. Meanwhile, militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) said the latest oil price hike underscores the failures of the Aquino administration in protecting consumers. “There is growing discontent over the Aquino government’s inability to protect consumers from skyrocketing prices and profiteering by the oil monopolies. The so-called ‘pantawid pasada’ offered to jeepney drivers has long been criticized as inadequate. Aquino offers neither solutions nor relief from rising oil prices. He has adamantly opposed proposals to suspend, reduce or scrap the Value Added Tax on oil," said Bayan secretary-general Renato M. Reyes, Jr. Bayan said that amid the price hikes, oil giants like Petron had announced a 79 percent increase in its net income for the first quarter of 2011. “It is simply unconscionable that these oil firms rake in super-profits at the expense of the people. It is also unconscionable that government continues to earn windfall VAT revenues from the people’s misery. People are being squeezed dry and the President is doing nothing," Reyes said. “Will rising prices be on the President’s SONA? Or will calls for substantial economic relief be again ignored in favor of stop-gap or pantawid measures?" he added. — With Marlon Anthony Tonson/VS, GMA News