RP to probe oil price hike

RP to probe oil price hike

MANILA (AFP): The chief aide of Philippine President Fidel
Ramos said here Saturday that he favored a probe into oil
companies raising their prices and called for a special law to
address alleged collusion in pricing.

Presidential Executive Secretary Ruben Torres said "we have to
press the oil companies to look into the pricing because it has
become very, very suspicious, even to the untrained eye... when
they all increase oil prices by the same amount and at the same
time."

"I think what we should do here is to have a law passed to
prevent this," Torres said, adding that this could be contained
in an "anti-trust, anti-monopoly law" which was before Congress.

He was reacting to calls by Congressmen and leftist groups for
a rollback in gasoline pump prices which were raised by an
average of four percent on July 31 due to the peso's plunge
against the dollar last month.

The price hike was made possible by an oil deregulation law
passed earlier this year, ending the government's longtime
control of oil prices.