Daven Tamayo

Boardroom Tea: Here’s how to buy fuel cheap

Article (news)

Salve Ibaňez

ABS-CBN News

<p>All of us are glued to the news about prices at the pump because it is about daily survival math for every Filipino. The jeepney commuter, Grab driver, sari-sari store owner, SME owner — all staring at a pump price that looks like a typo.</p><p>As of March 24, oil companies have announced double-digit increases in diesel and kerosene. The country is sitting at roughly 45 days of supply — down from 55 — with LPG at a more nerve-wracking 23 days.</p><p>President Marcos has declared a one-year national energy emergency, unlocking faster fuel procurement, advance supplier payments, and quicker rollout of subsidies and fare relief. The administration is treating this not as a temporary oil spike but as a genuine domestic economic threat.</p><p>Our people are scared. On top of pump prices, the Middle East crisis is causing serious volatility in FX markets.</p><p>SEAOIL CFO and LOCQ Inc. founder Mark Yu, in the Business Outlook studio this week, described the FX dimension plainly: every peso the currency depreciates adds P1.50 per liter at the pump. The peso has now breached P60 to the dollar — a record low, among Asia’s worst-performing currencies this month. Do that math. It stings.</p><p>But wait, there’s more. My sources are flagging supply-side unease, with some transactions being pulled back — the quiet alarm insiders raise before the broader market notices. An institutional broker friend adds that while the Philippines hasn’t moved to formal rationing, Thailand already has active pump sales limits, and Singapore’s marine fuel suppliers are rationing bunker stock for shipping clients. We are in supply-management mode, not comfort mode. </p><p>The macro read is stagflationary: imported inflation rises, BSP rate cuts get delayed. Overweight energy and defensives; avoid leveraged conglomerates and consumer discretionary — pricing power and clean balance sheets will win this round.</p><p>Which is why PriceLOCQ is the most downloaded app in the Philippines right now. It lets users buy fuel at today’s price and redeem it later — retail-level hedging previously reserved for airlines and shipping companies. Early adopters in 2020 locked in fuel at around P20-ish per liter. That now reads like a fever dream. Prescient is not a strong enough word for what Mark Yu built before the world got expensive.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>FEU BETS ON AI</strong></div><p>Away from the panic at the pump, Far Eastern University is quietly doing something interesting. Under Chairman Gigi Montinola III, FEU posted a 7 percent increase in net income to P651.4 million in the first half of fiscal year 2024-2025 — the result of deliberate, long-term bets on the right things.</p><p>The tea here is that FEU, where around 60,000 students roam corridors, is going deep on AI. New programs, heavy investment in computer systems, deliberate bench-building — the university counts one of the country’s top scientists on its roster. Gigi is a former banker steering a storied university into large language model territory. </p><p>That’s a story worth watching.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>BSP HEARD YOU — SORT OF</strong></div><p>MSMEs running on cash cycles and employers paying minimum-wage workers who still prefer cash were all caught in a rule designed to trap criminals, not entrepreneurs. Last March 4, the BSP raised the Enhanced Due Diligence threshold from P500,000 to P1 million under Circular No. 1230, after consultations confirmed a large volume of legitimate transactions was being snagged. </p><p>Analysts had warned the original policy risked pushing transactions into informal channels — the precise opposite of what the BSP intended. Doubling the threshold is a pragmatic fix. How we build a system that catches bad actors without treating every MSME owner like a suspect still doesn’t have a clean answer. The BSP listened. Now the banks need to follow through with the same speed and grace.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1774443097453WOMEN&#x27;S BUSINESS COUNCIL.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Women&#x27;s Business Council</span></span></span></div><div><strong>DRAGON LADIES ON THE MOVE</strong></div><p>Congratulations to incoming Women’s Business Council Philippines President Rosemarie Bosch-Ong, and warm gratitude to outgoing president Rhoda Caliwara. The induction at the newly renovated Centro de Turismo in Intramuros was a fitting venue — beautiful, historic, unapologetically Filipino — for a room full of women who run things. </p><p>On the agenda: the ASEAN Women Economic Summit, which Womenbiz will spearhead as the Philippines hosts ASEAN 2026. These dragon ladies aren’t just attending the regional conversation — they’re hosting it. Abangan.</p><div><em>Boardroom Tea comes out every Wednesday.</em></div>

<p>PriceLOCQ is the most downloaded app in the Philippines right now. It lets users buy fuel at today’s price and redeem it later</p>

PriceLOCQ is the most downloaded app in the Philippines right now. It lets users buy fuel at today’s price and redeem it later