CARTELIZATION: Will somebody please list the senators and congressmen who stampeded the Congress to pass the Oil Deregulation Act of 1998, which is obviously a failure as far as reining in the avarice of the giant oil companies is concerned.

The sponsors assured us consumers and motorists that deregulation — or leaving the fuel retail industry to itself — is the sure-fire formula to stabilize the prices of gasoline and other oil products.

They told us deregulation would create small players that would serve as counter-foil to the giants who have shown an insatiable appetite for bigger profits. What has emerged instead is cartelization.

Fuel price has soared to more than P55 per liter and is threatening to zoom higher. The rise of crude prices in the global market is true, but there is no convincing proof that the profits being raked in by local oil firms through their outlets are commensurate and reasonable.

The government cannot continue to use deregulation as an excuse for its apathy, lack of concern and feigned helplessness.

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NO EXCUSE: The behavior or Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile and the small band of lawmakers who made a spectacle of scolding foreign investors at a recent Senate public hearing was an unfortunate display of uncouth and un-Filipino manners.

Creeping old age is no excuse for the senators’ being hypersensitive to being ignored.

They did a disservice to the country and to its friends in the international community. In one careless moment, they put in jeopardy the accomplishments of the Arroyo administration in inviting foreign investors.

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REAL REASONS: The senators who took offense with a letter-suggestion of the Joint Foreign Chambers in the Philippines to President Gloria Arroyo on a plan to amend the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) were being touchy.

Probably regarding themselves as political demigods, their mindset requires that anything about legislation must revolve around them and them alone.

To them, anybody, especially if he is a foreigner, who is suggesting legislative action or inaction to an entity outside the Congress must be struck down and humiliated as he fell to his knees.

But their being touchy is not enough reason for their publicly scolding foreign guests. That is why speculation is rife as what the real reasons were for the outburst of Enrile et al. There was no sufficient provocation.

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PROTOCOL: Actually, there is nothing wrong protocol-wise for a private person or group to write to the President on matters involving legislation.  What could be diplomatically offensive is if the proponent is an official or agent of a foreign government.

For instance, if any department of the US government wants to say something to the Philippine government, the American department head does not write directly to his local opposite number.

Official letters are not sent directly to the department concerned, but coursed through the US embassy in Manila, which then communicates with our foreign affairs office.

But the JFC and its businessmen-members are not nor do they represent any foreign government. Since they are non-government, the diplomatic protocol just mentioned does not apply strictly to them.

Of course, courtesy and prudence may make it advisable for them to communicate to the Congress — and not to Malacanng — on pending or proposed legislation. In practice, however, as private businessmen they may write or talk to anybody in or out of government.

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MEAN, UNCALLED FOR: It was not clear under what category or personality the JFC officers were invited by the Senate. If they were told to show up with the senators having an ulterior motive of scolding them like errant kids, that was mean.

But if they were invited as resource persons whose expertise or experience could help the senators craft legislation regarding power, they should have been accorded utmost courtesy.

Filipinos are not known to invite guests to their homes only to berate them as they sit around the host. The senators’ outburst was unseemly.

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ARROGANCE: Bullying the joint chambers of investors will only worsen our anemic economic condition.

Member organizations of the JFC comprise the biggest consumers of electricity in the country. They employ more than a million Filipino workers.

Despite this, their investment here is one of the lowest in Asia, totaling only $2.4 billion in 2007 which is just a fraction of what has been poured into a Vietnam rising from the devastation of a war spanning generations.

Let’s face it, the Philippines is comparatively not a good place for industrial investors because of high power rates (second highest to Japan), the apparent lack of stability, and the ever-changing policies affecting foreign investments.

We cannot treat investors arrogantly.

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IN MIDSTREAM: The JFC members are important stakeholders in the power industry, yet they were not consulted when the plan to amend Epira was filed by administration lawmakers.

And when the investors spoke up, unfortunately in a letter to the President, they ended up being scolded and humiliated in public.

Their letter merely echoed the sentiments of foreign and local lending institutions like the Asian Development Bank and local businesses directly affected by moves to amend Epira even before it is given a chance to work.

We have been criticized for luring investors with all sorts of glowing promises. Then after they come in, we suddenly change the rules. Changing policies in midstream is not the best way to win the trust, and lock in the money, of investors.