Piston changes heart, accepts Aquino invitation for dialogue

MANILA, Philippines – Transport group Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Tsuper at Operators Nationwide (Piston), in a change of heart, has accepted President Benigno Aquino III’s invitation to meet and talk about issues concerning the continuous rise of prices of petroleum products, its secretary-general George San Mateo said Tuesday.

San Mateo said their decision to reconsider was because first, majority of transport groups would attend “so Piston better be there” and second, they wanted to make sure that the main agenda would be about petroleum prices and related issues and not about the conditional cash transfer only.

Problems on overpricing, scrapping of oil deregulation law, value added tax and toll fees should be the main concern in the dialogue, San Mateo said.

San Mateo said that even though they have predicted what Aquino would possibly offer, they were not closing their doors and were considering having a collective position with other transport groups.

On Monday, San Mateo said that their group “might be inclined not to attend the dialogue”.

Malacañang countered that it would not lose should Piston boycott the dialogue, which Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said, would be a venue for Aquino to “primarily listen to [transport groups]” and to already tell them “what can be done to address the situation.”

The furor over oil price increases came amid moves by independent player Eastern Petroleum to cut prices of gasoline by 50 centavos a liter, diesel and kerosene by 25 centavos a liter; while Phoenix Petroleum Philippines, Chevron Philippines and Seaoil Philippines reduce cost of gasoline by 35 centavos a liter and diesel by 20 centavos a liter.

Chevron and Seaoil also rolled back prices of regular gasoline by 20 centavos a liter and kerosene by 50 centavos a liter.