Domestic industries have warned that allowing the registration of the LPG Marketers Association Inc. (LPGMA) as a party-list group is tantamount to abetting cartel operation as the group has been alleged to engage in fixing the price of cooking gas.

This develop as the Commission on Elections has yet to rule on the petition filed by the Federation of Philippine Industries for the cancellation of the LPGMA party-list registration on the ground that the latter does not belong to, nor represent, a marginalized or under-represented sector as contemplated under RA 7941 or the Party-List System Act.

“If Comelec denies us, we will go to the Supreme Court and we will argue that the Comelec decision is abetting cartel operation in the country. By accrediting LPGMA as a party-list then you are legalizing cartel,” said FPI chairman Jesus L. Arranza.

Aside from the fact that LPGMA members are small independent LPG dealers but are already big businessmen, Arranza said the fact that the association has been announcing LPG prices whether up or down is already an evidence of price fixing.

“Unlike oil companies which have no association but by all coincidence have been separately announcing the same price adjustments, the LPGMA is an association and has the temerity to apply as a party-list. What they are doing is price fixing,” Arranza said.

LPGMA won a seat in Congress in the May election, but its nominee cannot yet assume post in Congress because of the pending petition by the FPI.

“Even without a competition policy, it is too obvious that this organization is fixing their prices. An association of the same industry is not even supposed to discuss prices among themselves,” said Arranza.

In its pending petition before the Comelec, the FPI revealed that the incorporators and board of trustees of LPGMA are industrialists and therefore part of big business, hence, it should not have been allowed to be registered as a sectoral group under the Party-list System.

Arranza explained that the business of marketing and refilling liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and other related products entail and require millions in working capital.

The party-list system seeks to enable certain Filipino citizen “specifically those belonging to the marginalized and under-represented sectors, organization and parties to be elected in the House of Representatives.”

“LPGMA does not fall squarely within the said criteria. As a matter of fact, it will even lead to the creation of a cartel,” Arranza said.