Huli ka!

The Big 3, Total Philippines and PTT have all announced a price hike on gasoline prices effective 12:01am on Wednesday, January 28, 2009, with the exception of Petron, who will be implementing the price increase beginning 6:00am the same day. The Big 3 and Total will be increasing gasoline by P1 per liter while PTT will only raise its pump price by 50 cents.

Also, a 75 cent and P1 rollback for diesel and kerosene, respectively, will be implemented by the Big 3 and Total at the same time as their price increase for gasoline. PTT, on the other hand, has announced a P1 per liter rollback for both its diesel and kerosene.

These announcements follow SeaOil's rollback of diesel and kerosene by P2 per liter and Eastern Petroleum's P1 rollback for the same products earlier today. The two firms did not announce nor implement a price increase for gasoline.

With all these price movements, we believe that the oil firms have adopted a confuse-the-consumer policy in an effort to stem negative public opinion on the price hikes. It sure is working on us!

While we're on the topic, shouldn't the LTFRB now be pushing for price reductions for public transport fares? We seem to recall that they, together with various transport groups, have vowed to bring down fares once diesel reaches a certain price point, which we believe has already been reached.