Gov’t Urged to Nationalize Oil to Solve Crisis

Experts urged the government to scrap the oil deregulation law and nationalize the oil industry to solve the oil crisis in the country, instead of merely paying “lip service” to the development and propagation of alternatives energy sources and resorting to “political solutions.”

Carmelito Tatlonghari, a climate change expert and former Energy Program Manager of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Giovanni Tapang, PhD, chairperson of the Samahan ng Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya Para sa Sambayanan (Agham or Advocates of Science and Technology for the People) both said that nationalizing the oil industry will solve the oil crisis in the country.

..Although Tatlonghari said that the technology exists, he questioned the capacity of processing plants to produce these biofuels.

Tapang said that the government is merely paying lip service when it announced that it is working towards making biofuel alternatives commercially available.

Tapang admitted that the there is a good possibility that biofuels can be developed and used in the country. The problem, he said, is in the lack of government support for the development of sources.

He said that unless the agrarian system is restructured, “biofuel plantations would remain under the ownership of big landlords who could control the development, production and distribution of biofuel.”

Bulatlat