Bacolod jeepney drivers, operators join nat’l transport protest
BACOLOD CITY- Drivers and operators of traditional jeepneys and other transport groups have stopped plying their routes here on Thursday as part of a nationwide protest to demand government action over rising fuel prices brought on by the Middle East unrest.
Leading the strike in Bacolod are the United Negros Drivers and Operators Center-Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Tsuper at Opereytor Nationwide (UNDOC PISTON) and the Kabacod Negros Transport Organization (KNETCO).
Eric Bendoy, UNDOC-PISTON secretary general, said they are calling for the suspension of value-added and excise taxes on petroleum products, and the repeal of the oil deregulation law.
The Bacolod strike is only for one day, Bendoy added.
On Monday, the group also spearheaded a transport holiday.
READ: Bacolod transport groups stage strike over unfair aid distribution
Modern jeepneys are expected to continue to ply the city’s streets.
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) Negros, in a press statement, expressed its full support for the strike.
“This protest is a legitimate and necessary response to an unbearable crisis—a crisis manufactured not by global markets alone, but by a national government that prioritizes taxes and corporate profits over the lives of its people,” Bayan Negros spokesperson Berlita Ante said.
The declared “state of energy emergency” by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is a hollow gesture, a confession of failure without concrete action, she said.
READ: Marcos declares state of national energy emergency
“It provides no shield to our drivers, who now count their daily earnings not in profit, but in survival…This is a death sentence for a family’s future, a slow starvation sanctioned by state policy,” she added.
“The root of this crisis is the system of bureaucrat capitalism, where the government functions as a tax collector for foreign oil companies and a protector of local cartels,” Ante said.
BAYAN Negros is calling for the immediate scrapping of value-added and excise taxes on petroleum products, a substantial fuel price rollback, and the distribution of sufficient and unconditional emergency aid to all affected drivers and operators.
It is also calling on government to penalize oil cartels for alleged profiteering. /coa
