Wednesday, May 07, 2008 Transport strike in Negros set next week By Erwin Ambo S. Delilan
A NEW transport strike in Bacolod and other parts of Negros Occidental will be held next week.
Jessie Ortega, secretary general of the United Negros Drivers and Operators Center (Undoc), disclosed Tuesday that, together with the Federation of Bacolod Drivers Associations (Febacda), they would be holding a province-wide transport strike.
But Ortega stressed that in their new transport strike, they will not include fare hike on their demands to the government. "Demand for fare hike won't solve the situation. Instead, it will only worsen the lives of the poor people."
Undoc has about 8,000 members all over Negros, while Febacda has more than 2,000 driver-members in Bacolod City.
"We will be meeting at Undoc office at Libertad, Bacolod on Wednesday to plan out things and courses of action regarding next week's transport strike," Ortega said.
The new transport strike, Ortega said, is their quick reaction to the recent increase of oil prices in the country that brought the price of gasoline at P50 per liter.
"We want to inform the public that what's happening right now is too much," Ortega said, adding that, "This is too much and we could no longer bear this situation. This is 'horrible'."
Last Saturday, major oil companies in the country raised the prices of petroleum products at P1 per liter, causing an immediate new price adjustment of premium unleaded gasoline. It now ranges from P46.17 to P50.65 per liter, diesel from P38.91 to P43 per liter, and kerosene from P43.30 to P48.80 per liter.
The price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) was also jacked up by P1 per kilogram.
Among the groups' main demands include the immediate scrapping of all reformed value added tax (RVAT) on all petroleum products, agriculture, energy and services, and the scrapping of the Oil Deregulation Law (ODL).
Ortega said if the RVAT and ODL would be scrapped soon, problems on the unstoppable increases of oil prices would be at least minimized.
Bacolod Representative Monico Puentevella said "it's already the prerogative of the drivers and transport operators on what to do on the recent oil price increase. Right now, the government is really, really trying to plan things on how to address the situation."
One of the immediate plans, he said, is to again buy Petron from a private sector.
"In this way, at least, the government could also implement an oil subsidy like rice subsidy at the midst of the present rice crisis in the country," Puentevella explained.
He, however, said that for now, they are still waiting for the arrival of Pampanga Representative Juan Miguel 'Mikey' Arroyo from the United States.
Arroyo is the chairman of the House's committee on energy.
