By Lorie A. Cascaro
Davao City drivers and operators of public utility jeeps (PUJ) are building strength and gathering support from different sectors in the region for the upcoming welgangbayan (nationwide protest).
Edil Gonzaga, spokesperson of Transmission-Piston, said during the group’s protest rally in front of the Department of Energy 11 yesterday that the nationwide protest will definitely be soon this year.
Dismayed by President Aquino’s alleged inaction on skyrocketing oil prices, a group of drivers in Davao City yesterday burned effigies of him lounging in a chair or “noynoying”, along with symbols of the big three oil companies in front DOE regional office here.
Earlier, the rallyists conducted a caravan of some 25 jeeps from Magsaysay Park along the city’s main thoroughfares.
Gonzaga said the protest was a build-up activity by not only concerned drivers and operators, but the entire nation to raise the level of nationwide awareness and to intensify protest against the continuing oil price hikes.
Transmission-Piston members comprise 65% of the total number/of PUJ drivers and operators in the city, with 46 member associations, and their membership expanded to the cities of Panabo and Tagum.
Gonzaga boasted that their sector has the capacity to conduct higher forms of protest action such as a transport strike and is preparing their ranks for the activity.
To coincide with Holy Week, the group will “KalbaryosaKabus” (Calvary of the Poor), a procession traditionally done and initiated by the urban poor sector of the city on April 4 as well as the massive protest action of workers on Labor Day, May 1.
Fare hike, not solution Gonzaga admitted that his group did not file a petition for fare increase, but that if earlier petitions by other groups are approved, then all drivers and operators are entitled to avail of the fare increase.
The group demands for exemption of oil prices from 12% expanded value added tax as an immediate economic relief.
Sheena Duazo, spokesperson of BagongAlyansangMakabayan, Southern Mindanao, said that fare hikes are not the solution to the problem, but the repeal of the Oil Deregulation Law.
Duazo added that the P.50 provisional fare increase implemented in some regions is merely a consolation from the government for suffering poor Filipinos.
