SEN. Erwin Tulfo raised the need to protect the public from arbitrary oil price increases as he urged gas firms to refrain from unilaterally declaring fuel price hikes based on external global events. The senator co-authored Senate Bill (SB) 641 aimed at imposing transparency in the Philippine downstream oil industry. Under SB 641, the Department of Energy (DOE) will be mandated to order oil companies to submit the actual costing of their fuel prices. This requirement would be triggered whenever the average price of Dubai crude oil hits a specific threshold per barrel, based on the Mean of Platts Singapore. “We must put an end to this seemingly taking advantage of external events to pass the burden to the consumers,” Tulfo said on Sunday. He noted that many citizens have raised concerns regarding premature hikes and suspicious market activities. “Many of our kababayan (fellow Filipinos) reach out to me asking why there are premature hikes," Tulfo said in a statement. "And there’s even this fishy scheme where some gas stations declare that they’re out of supply — as if waiting for the mega price hike before opening their doors again to consumers. This has to stop,” he said. During a previous hearing of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, the DOE said it already issued notices to some gas stations to explain allegations that they took advantage of the Middle East war to jack up prices. However, the DOE admitted that its actions remain limited under the existing Oil Deregulation Law. “We want to institutionalize an automatic trigger where oil companies will be mandated to provide a list of their actual costs. This is to ensure that Filipinos are well-informed on why they’re paying a certain amount for gas,” Tulfo said.