BY LEONARDO V. MICUA
Pulling us out of the abyss
The announcement by Executive Secretary Ralph Recto that the first batch of one million barrels of oil from Indonesia will arrive in the Philippines sometime next week is good news for all Filipinos, especially jeepney and tricycle drivers, as well as all vehicle owners like us.
It could mean the end of the long queues of vehicles before every gasoline station, as owners try to refuel before a new major oil price hike takes effect the next day; a weekly occurrence since the conflict in the Middle East began unpredictably on February 28.
Note that this is in addition to the oil sourced from Russia, which was just delivered last week to the Petron refineries in Limay, Bataan, through successful negotiations led by the Department of Energy, headed by Secretary Sharon Garin.
BBM has done everything possible to seek out oil, knowing that a lack of it will put his administration in a difficult position. His top critic, VP Sara Duterte, might accuse Bongbong of playing the fiddle while his country burns.
All Filipinos understand that everyone is in need of oil, and if those needs are not met, they will talk behind your back, and you will become unpopular, even if you are Bongbong, the President of the Philippines.
But with the first shipment of one million barrels of Indonesian oil, it looks like we have been pulled out of the abyss and will not have to fight for the remaining drops of oil in the country anymore.
Wait! Even if the Indonesian oil will be made available soon, there is no guarantee that the price of oil, that has already gone through the roof, will go down to its pre-Middle East War level.
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It was Holy Wednesday when I applied as a stringer for the state-owned Philippines News Agency, a few days after its founding by then Press Secretary Kit Tatad and Jose Pavia, former senior editor of the defunct Philippines Herald, on March 1, 1973. Thus, I consider myself one of the early pillars of the agency, having been there since it was born.
However, it was not Joe Pavia whom I met at the first PNA national headquarters on the second floor of the National Press Club Building in Manila. It was his managing editor, Renato ‘Ronnie’ Tiangco.
Ronnie told me I should start filing stories from Pangasinan and the north the next day. I begged off, however, because when my younger brother was returning to Rosario, Cavite, I asked if I could join him on his trip to that province, but first I would drop by NPC to apply for job at PNA.
While I filled out the forms, my brother Nolie waited outside for us to go together to Cavite.
Few weeks after that, I received a telegraph from Mr. Pavia ordering me to go to PT and T Dagupan on Torres Bugallon Avenue, where two teletype machines were reserved for me, at my disposal. That was the birth of PNA Dagupan, with me as its first bureau chief.
It was opened simultaneously along with the other PNA bureaus in Baguio, Tuguegarao, San Fernando, Pampanga; Legaspi City, Cebu, Tacloban, Iloilo, Bacolod, Zamboanga, Davao, and Cotabato. In my tour of duty, I was made as chief of the Northern Luzon Bureau in Baguio as Senior Correspondent, a plantilla position in the government.
The rest is now history.