Safe Passage Through Hormuz Won’t Spare Filipinos From the Next Fuel Price Hike

04/06/2026

What It Means

The next fuel price hike is projected at ₱17 to ₱19 per liter for diesel on April 8, potentially pushing pump prices to ₱166 per liter, despite the Philippines securing safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz three days earlier.
DOE Secretary Sharon Garin confirmed the Hormuz deal is “risk management,” not a price intervention, and will not immediately bring down fuel costs.
The deal secures supply access and protects Filipino seafarers, but the pricing mechanism remains tied to global benchmarks through the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS).
The Oil Deregulation Act (RA 8479) prevents the government from capping pump prices, meaning no diplomatic arrangement can override market-driven fuel adjustments.
For transport operators, logistics firms, and MSMEs, the fuel price hike cycle will continue regardless of the Hormuz arrangement. Cost planning should assume sustained high prices, not diplomatic relief.

The Philippines secured Iran’s verbal commitment to safe, toll-free passage through the Strait of Hormuz on April 2. Three days later, the fuel price hike projections for the following week showed diesel climbing another ₱17 to ₱19 per liter. If implemented in full, diesel at the pump would reach roughly ₱166 per liter, a near-historic level. Gasoline is expected to rise ₱3 to ₱5 per liter.

The disconnect between the diplomatic win and the pricing reality is not a contradiction. It is the point. Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said so herself: the Hormuz arrangement is risk management, not price relief. Her exact framing on April 5 was direct. The deal will not immediately bring down fuel prices. It does not resolve the country’s long-term structural challenges in energy. It is not a perfect solution and does not eliminate all risks.

That admission matters because public expectations ran ahead of what the deal was designed to deliver. When the DFA announced the safe passage commitment, the natural reading for most Filipinos was that oil would now flow and prices would stabilize. Garin is now correcting that reading in real time.

The Pricing Mechanism the Deal Cannot Touch

The fuel price hike cycle in the Philippines is driven by MOPS, the regional benchmark that determines what oil companies pay for refined products. When MOPS moves, pump prices move. The Hormuz deal does not affect MOPS. It affects whether ships carrying crude oil can physically transit the strait without being stopped, detained, or charged.

Those are two different problems. Supply access and supply pricing operate on separate tracks. A ship that can pass through Hormuz still carries oil priced at whatever the global market demands. The crude behind Philippine fuel imports, even when sourced through regional hubs like Singapore or South Korea, traces back to Middle Eastern production that transits the strait. Any disruption in Hormuz affects global supply volumes, which affects MOPS, which affects the fuel price hike at the pump.

Safe passage reduces the risk of a total supply cutoff. That is a real gain. But it does not compress the risk premium already baked into global crude prices, which have been trading well above pre-war levels since the US-Israel strikes on Iran began on February 28.

The Legal Constraint Behind the Price

There is a reason the government frames the deal as risk management rather than price management. Under the Oil Deregulation Act (RA 8479), the government cannot directly regulate pump prices. Oil companies set prices based on international benchmarks and their own cost structures. The DOE can monitor, it can jawbone, and it can release emergency supply, but it cannot cap what consumers pay at the pump.

This legal architecture means that no diplomatic arrangement, no matter how successful, translates into price control. The Hormuz deal could work exactly as intended. Ships could transit safely, supply could flow, and the fuel price hike would still land on Tuesday because the global price of diesel is set by markets the Philippine government does not control.

Garin has acknowledged this constraint before. In a March 21 interview, she said the worst-case scenario was not expensive fuel but absent fuel. The government’s priority has been availability over affordability since the crisis began. The Hormuz deal fits that priority cleanly. It is a supply security measure dressed in the language of diplomatic breakthrough.

The Numbers Behind the Next Fuel Price Hike

The fuel price hike projected for April 8 would mark the fifth consecutive week of increases. Diesel has already moved from roughly ₱90 per liter in late February to ₱145 or higher, depending on the station and the brand. Another ₱17 to ₱19 pushes the range toward ₱164 to ₱166.

For transport operators, that increase lands directly on operating costs. Jeepney and bus operators already face margin compression that prompted transport strikes in several provinces. Logistics companies are repricing contracts or eating the difference. Agriculture, which depends on diesel for both transport and mechanized farming, absorbs the cost at every stage from field to market.

LPG prices have also spiked. A standard 11-kilogram cylinder rose by as much as ₱403 on April 1, one of the steepest single-day adjustments in recent years. The fuel price hike is not limited to the pump. It runs through every energy input the economy depends on.

What the Hormuz Deal Actually Bought

The deal bought time and access. Not price relief. Not structural reform. Not a pathway out of the Oil Deregulation Act’s constraints.

It reduced the probability of a complete supply disruption for Philippine-bound crude and petroleum products. The DFA confirmed no toll fees would apply to Philippine-flagged vessels, which matters given reports of Iran charging up to $2 million per tanker for other countries. Safe passage also covers Filipino seafarers, more than 20,000 of whom have been stranded near the strait.

Those are real outcomes. But they do not change the cost of oil. And the next fuel price hike, landing Tuesday, will confirm that distinction for every Filipino filling a tank or moving goods across the country.

The pattern from here is clear. The Hormuz deal holds the supply line. The pricing line remains exposed to global markets, military escalation signals, and MOPS volatility. Operators who built cost assumptions around a diplomatic rescue need to rebuild them around sustained high fuel costs. The government has now said so openly.