Drivers’ Nationwide Strike Cripples Transport

Despite government warnings, militant transport groups staged their second nationwide strike on March 30 – the second in a month. Hoping to avert a transport crisis, transport authorities were forced to grant a fare recalibration.

By Alexander Martin Remollino
Bulatlat.com

The nationwide transport strike 30 was the second in a month. The first was held last March 1. Like the March 1 strike, the March 30 action was a demand for a P1 increase in minimum fare and a rollback in oil prices.

The strike paralyzed some 85-97 percent of public transportation in Metro Manila, as well as in the provinces of Pampanga, Bulacan, Zambales, Bataan, Tarlac, Southern Tagalog; Buhi and Bato in Camarines Sur, Aklan, Antique, Cebu, Negros Occidental, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro City, Davao City, and General Santos City.

In the March 1 strike the protesting drivers were met with complaints from irate commuters, registered through street surveys by TV news programs. In the run-up to the second strike, however, man-on-the-street interviews conducted showed commuters to be more understanding of the drivers’ demands.

Basics

The last time that public transport drivers were authorized to implement a fare increase was in 2000. The fare hike set the minimum fare at P4 for the first four kilometers. At that time, diesel cost about P13.50 per liter. Today diesel costs P18 a liter.

Reports by the socio-economic think tank Ibon Foundation revealed that oil companies have increased the prices of their products even when there were downtrends in the world oil market. Last year oil companies overpriced their products by P0.91.

Mar Garvida, Piston national president, said jeepney drivers spend some P540 on diesel everyday at present diesel costs, and take in an average of 300 passengers a day. Thus P540 is taken daily from their P1,200 gross income, and from the remainder P500 more are taken away as boundary fees, leaving them with just P160 to take home at the end of the day.

The takehome pay is way below the P555 an average Filipino family needs to survive daily, going by an October 2003 study by Ibon. The think tank based its study on data from the National Wages and Productivity Board.

Piston and other transport groups, in the series of transport strikes last March, were demanding a P1increase in minimum fare. A P5 minimum fare would give them a gross daily income of P1,500. Taking away P540 as diesel costs and P500 more as boundary fees, a driver would be taking home P460. This is still P95 short of the daily cost of living as of October 2003.

The drivers’ demand for a P1 fare increase appeared to be modest compared to their current economic needs.

Recall

The transport groups decided on staging the March 1 transport strike after the LTFRB rejected last February a petition for fare increase as being without basis. The petition had been filed in October 2002.

But the LTFRB’s own guidelines provide that fare may be hiked when oil prices have increased significantly. Oil prices had increased several times since 2000 when they filed their petition.

The LTFRB’s refusal to act on their petition led them to stage the March 1 transport strike. After the strike, the LTFRB invited the transport groups to a series of dialogues. In the end, however, they were told that their demand would lead to a clamor for wage increases from workers - an argument Piston honorary chair Medardo Roda dismissed as a lie since labor groups have been calling for a P125 across-the-board, nationwide wage increase since 1999.

Seeing that this was a subtle way of rejecting their petition, Piston and other transport groups staged a
second nationwide transport strike last March 30.

Success

There was already some success in the offing beforehand, as after March 1 oil companies Caltex and Petron gave discounts to public transport drivers in selected stations, proving that they could roll back the prices of their products.

Likewise a few days before March 30, the government approved a fare calibration, making the P4 minimum fare effective for the first four, instead of five, kilometers. The government had felt the impact of the March 1 transport strike and implemented the fare calibration to avert a second strike, even as it had been warning transport groups that their licenses would be revoked and their jeepney registration plates confiscated.

The transport groups remained unfazed. Bulatlat.com

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