There is a law that no legislative body of any government can amend. It is the “law of supply and demand”.
An old story that says once upon a time, in the halls of Congress, there was an ongoing debate about what to do about the price of rice because it was rising. Somebody told Congress that the main reason for the price increase is the law of supply and demand. And so a member of Congress proposed amending this law.
That Congressman did not know that this law is an economic doctrine that describes how product prices vary with supply and demand. Demand decreases as prices rise. Supply increases when prices go higher. It is not a law that Congress can amend.
Under this doctrine if demand increases and supply is stable, price rises.
In the current spike, the price of gasoline is projected to rise by P7.48 per liter and diesel by P17 per liter within a few days. Looks like this is no longer an expectation. It is happening.
At the moment, Petron in Tacloban City is still selling gasoline at 54 pesos per liter, while other stations are already selling at 78 pesos. Excessive profiteering is at play here. There are reports that this has gone as high as P100 a liter in some towns.
The spike has not affected Petron gasoline prices, but it has already been imposed on others. These prices will still rise because the war affects a fourth of the world's oil supply, and many oil-producing countries are set to halt production while the war rages.
The main cause of the hike is, as everybody knows, the war in the Middle East between Iran and the US-Israel. Reports show that Iran has bombed oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, as well as some large oil depots of Middle Eastern countries like Qatar.
The war is escalating, and there is no end in sight. US President Donald Trump is asking the Iranian military to surrender. The Iranian government responded by bombing Israel and nearby Arab countries with missiles and drones.
For an oil-importing country like the Philippines, this escalation is very bad news. On top of draining the oil supply that is pushing prices higher, we have millions of Filipinos working in the Middle East. Their physical and financial safety is in danger.
This brings us to question: what is the government going to do in this crisis? The only action we know of is that the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) is encouraging workers who want to return to the country to inform the Department as they seek safe routes. But this Department does not seem to have done anything other than say that 100 Filipinos have expressed a desire to return. No repatriation has been done yet.
What are they waiting for? Their actions might be a bit too late. Maybe it is a “too late the hero” scenario, where an individual performs a heroic act only after it is too late to change the outcome.
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