Assessment of Russia-Ukraine Conflict on PH Energy Sought

The Philippine senate now looks on to assessing the impact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has on Philippine energy security as gasoline prices are back on the rise after weeks of rollbacks.

This comes as Senator Sherwin Gatchalian filed Senate Resolution No. 78, which stresses that the continuous rise of oil prices in the global market has reached the domestic market.

The resolution emphasized the 22 percent increase in the price of gasoline prices from January 2022 to May 2022, amounting to an increase from PHP63.58 per liter in January to PHP77.71 per liter in May.

Diesel products took an even harder blow, prices skyrocketed by 49 percent from PHP50.95 per liter in January 2022 to PHP75.92 per liter in May of the same year.

The soaring prices began a snowball effect in the Philippine economy, as prices of basic commodities increased due to transportation costs, along with public utility vehicles and public utility jeepneys opting to increase their prices or not operate at all as they cannot recuperate their operational costs, which negatively impacted the transport sector of the country greatly.

Gatchalian said in a press release Thursday that congress needs to be aware of both the short and long-term effects that the Russian invasion of Ukraine may have in the Philippines.

“There is a need for Congress to be apprised of the short, medium, and long-term effects and implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the Philippine economy, in particular, the country’s oil supply and the effects of the continuous elevated global oil and coal prices on domestic oil and petroleum products,” Gatchalian said.

Gatchalian was the chairman of the Committee on Energy in the 18th Congress. (GFB)