Fuel costs spark another transport strike planned for today

CABUYAO, Laguna—Transport groups on Monday announced a plan to stage simultaneous strikes in Calabarzon, Bicol, Iloilo, Cagayan and Davao City today as part of a national day of protest against rising fuel costs.

It will be the “second round” of protest action since jeepney and tricycle drivers and operators paralyzed traffic in a regionwide strike last month.

George San Mateo, secretary general of the Pagkakaisa ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide (Piston), said the planned strikes would serve as “buildup” for a nationwide protest to be mounted in the coming months.

“Transport strikes will be held in the Calabarzon and Bicol while protest rallies will be held in Cagayan Valley, Iloilo City and other provinces,” San Mateo said.

A caravan will target the offices of three big oil companies—Pilipinas Shell, Caltex and Petron—in Manila, San Mateo said in a press briefing here.

Piston is protesting the delayed and slim adjustments in oil prices made by the so-called “Big 3” despite plunging world crude prices.

“Some lawmakers already said that the rollback should be P5-P8 per liter,” San Mateo said.

Lando Mingo, chair of the Southern Tagalog Region Transport Organization (Starter), said the groups were also demanding the scrapping of the 12 percent expanded value-added tax and the P9 per liter overpricing on fuel costs.

In Davao City, Transmission-Piston demanded a P9 rollback in oil prices as it vowed to lead a multisectoral street protest in the city today.

Edil Gonzaga, the group’s secretary general, said his group would protest continuing increases in oil price and the P9.22 per liter overpricing of oil products in Davao.

“The government has turned blind and deaf on the people’s dire economic conditions by allowing these companies to profit,” he said. With a report from Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao