Life in PNoy’s Enchanted Kingdom

At the House hearing on the LPG shortage…

“We want to bring order to this industry but the illegal hoarders and refillers are the ones destroying the industry. Hirap na hirap na ang tao ninanakawan pa na dilat ang mata,” said Reyes.

So Zambales Representative Mitos Magsaysay asked him, “How many illegal refillers are there?”

Reyes replied that he just siezed 2,000 cylinders of hoarded LPG.

So Magsaysay retorted, “I don’t think this will change the landscape of LPG shortage in this country.”

But the unflappable Reyes insisted, “That’s only the tip of the iceberg. I’d like to think there are plenty of those lying around.”

So Bernie Bolisay, president of the LPG Refillers Association, pointed out the obvious, “There is no hoarding by refillers, for the simple reason that there is nothing to hoard. Dealers are also queueing.”

So who or what is behind the shortage?

Arnel TY, president of LPG Marketers Association, said the problem started last December when the Big Three- Shell, Chevron, and Petron- started buying LPG from Liquigaz instead of relying on their own supplies.

The Big Three said they were caught flatfooted by the sudden increase in demand.

Didn’t they have any projections?

Well, they said it was difficult to make an accurate prediction because the independent refillers and dealers buy on the spot market.

Petron said, “We are continually selling to allied refillers …They are assured of their regular volume because they follow the rules of the industry. But the demand of independent refillers is hard to project.”

In other words, there would be no shortage if everyone signed up with the Big Three. That’s the golden rule. They wish.

And so what Ty said with regards to hoarding - that it was easier for the Big Three to connive to withhold LPG from the market, to control the supply as it were, than it is for thousands of independent refillers and dealers to do so - makes sense.

And Reyes is blaming the independents, accusing them of hoarding.

Malaya columnist Lito Banayo on Angelo Reyes.

In these desperate isles, we have a secretary of energy who is clueless about the supply and demand of LPG and helpless about both prices and shortages, simply giving deregulation as an excuse for rank incompetence. Everyone wondered why he was appointed to the DOE, after a lackluster stint in the DENR. He was shafted to the new post after the 2007 elections, to give way to former Mayor Lito Atienza, a favorite of Dona Gloria. Before that, Angelo Reyes was DILG secretary, but was asked to move out, simply because another Palace favorite, Ronaldo Puno, congressman from Antipolo City and political operator of the Doña, wanted the position. When he was Secretary of National Defense in the first part of Doña Gloria’s reign, junior officers mutinied against her government at posh Oakwood, and among their demands were the removal of Reyes and his devious right-hand man, Victor Corpuz. She removed him, but his key role as the AFP chief of staff who deserted his duly-elected president in 2001 was a debt of gratitude his Doña has had to repay several times over. And so he has been recycled from one cabinet position to another, never mind if he is just a jack of all trades and master of none. Trouble is, even as a jack, his hydraulics don’t work.