Strike by 20,000 drivers paralyzes Angeles City

ANGELES CITY—Some 20,000 drivers here stopped plying their routes at 7 a.m. on Thursday, stranding thousands of commuters on the way to work, school or market.

Drivers protesting the nine oil price increases since January belong to 14 jeepney organizations and 208 tricycle groups operating within the city, according Rey Gueco, spokesperson of the Piston (Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Tsuper at Opereytor Nationwide or United Organizations of Drivers and Operators Nationwide).

“We have paralyzed (public transportation) 100 percent,” Gueco told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Piston, he said, allowed the trucks of the city government and multi-cabs of the barangays (villages) to ferry stranded passengers.

Gueco said many drivers serving outside city limit routes refused to join what Piston dubbed as “tigil-pasada” or a halt in transport services. Those drivers belong to associations in the City of San Fernando and the towns of Arayat and Magalang in the east, Mabalacat in the north and Porac in the west.

Piston would lift the protest strike at 4 p.m., also on Thursday, in time for a rally in the city’s Plaza Miranda.

“We want President Aquino to act on the overpricing of oil products by oil companies and to suspend the arbitrary tax hike being imposed by the [Bureau of Internal Revenue] on [public utility jeepneys],” Gueco said of the issues that prompted the Thursday’s protest.

Piston’s monitoring showed that the average price of diesel in the area rose from P36 per liter in December to P46.70 on March 22. Gasoline prices shot up from P46.50 a liter to P53.90 for the same period.

Chief Superintendent Allan Purisima, director of the police in Central Luzon, said no transport strikes were mounted in the rest of Pampanga, Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac and Zambales.

“It’s been peaceful so far,” Purisima said from Camp Olivas in the Pampanga capital of San Fernando at 9 a.m.