CHICKENPIE.The Department of Energy called Tuesday's incoming adjustment “extra-large.” Not catastrophic. Not “please prepare.” Extra-large. Like a drink size at a fast food counter — except you didn’t order it, you can’t send it back, and Tuesday’s already been confirmed.
Diesel is going up ₱9 to ₱10 per liter on July 21. Gasoline by ₱3.50 to ₱4.50. Metro Manila diesel was already at ₱90.77. After Tuesday it crosses ₱100. Premium gasoline, already at ₱96.10, gets to sprint the rest of the way across that threshold. The DOE finalizes the official number on Monday. They’re not asking for feedback.
The cause is a war. More specifically: Iranian attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, US retaliatory airstrikes, rising shipping risk in a narrow passage of water most Filipinos cannot point to on a map but apparently cannot live without. Between those events and your tricycle’s fuel tank: a pricing formula called MOPS — Mean of Platts Singapore — that nobody’s driver consulted on. The formula runs. The number climbs. Your receipt updates.
“Fuel shock raises inflation risk,” read one business headline this week. That’s the financial page’s way of saying: anything that moves on a truck is about to cost more. Food. Hardware. Medicine. The logistics chain sits on diesel like a building on a foundation. When diesel moves, everything above it moves.
What that headline doesn’t say: the people absorbing this are not people who can absorb it. A jeepney driver running on diesel, collecting ₱11 per passenger. A tricycle operator with a ₱500 daily limit. A delivery rider with a quota and zero per-liter subsidy. They were not briefed. They are not being consulted. They will be the first ones adjusting and the last ones reimbursed.
This is the global economy doing exactly what it was designed to do. Somewhere in the Strait of Hormuz, a tanker changed course. In Manila, a pump ticked up. The MOPS formula ran its calculation. Nobody called anyone. Nobody filed a form. Nobody even sent a text. The result arrived on a Tuesday, pre-formatted as an extra-large, and there is no manager to speak to.
Enjoy.
