‘Terror
Is Part of Our Life on the Streets’
New Negros-wide transport
strike looms
At
the height of the transport strike in Negros Island last week, drivers and
operators dared government to cancel their franchises and send them to jail. If
government makes good its threat, they will taste what it feels to face the
wrath of poor people, a strike leader said.
By
Karl G. Ombion
Bulatlat.com
BACOLOD
CITY – “Ginahangkat namon ang gobyerno ni President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
nga tuod-tuoron nya ang pagkakas sg amon mga prangkisa, kay makita nya ang wala
pa nya matilawan halin sa mga drivers kag operators” (We dare the
government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to make true her threats to
disenfranchise the striking drivers so she would know what she may not have seen
yet from the transport sector and the general commuters), a fuming Jesse Ortega,
secretary general of UNDOC and national council member of Piston, challenged the
government and Elena Bautista of the LTFRB last week.
Added
Joemarie Mahilum, a driver and council member of the United Negros Drivers and
Operators Center (UNDOC): “Terror is part of our life on the streets, and when
asserting for our rights and interests. Pamahaw, pangyaga, panyapon kag
tungang gab-i pa ina nga pahugay sa amon!” (breakfast, lunch, dinner, up
to midnight, terror threats are part of our daily routine).
These
were some of the responses the drivers told Bulatlat.com at the peak of
the March 1 nationwide transport strike when asked about the threat of the
Macapagal-Arroyo government to impose sanctions on all striking drivers and
operators. Among the threats issued by Bautista of the Land Transportation and
Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB) is the cancellation of vehicle’s
franchises, stiffer penalties, and imprisonment.
The
national transport strike – launched two months before the May national
elections - was considered by the drivers and some sectors as the most lethal
and widespread protest action in 15 years. The last time the drivers held a
national transport strike as powerful as this was sometime in late 1980s, said
Ortega.
100
percent paralysis
The
UNDOC strike last March 1 paralyzed 100 percent of the entire public
transportation system in sugar-producing Negros island, central Philippines.
Strikers, however, called the scheduled second day of strike following a
decision of Piston, the nationwide alliance of transport groups.
“We
have sent our collective message across the country,” Ortega said. “The
government was shaken. Now it is time to sit on the negotiating table.” He
warned however that if the government fails to heed their demands for a rollback
of oil prices and transport fare increase by March 16, “we will be constrained
to hold a more bigger, longer and powerful national strikes.”
Ortega
also clarified that Piston and its affiliates will not join the planned strike
of Fejodap-led factions of the drivers and operators in Metro Manila on March 8.
(Fejodap, as expected, has since canceled the planned strike.)
Although
he welcomed the P0.30 rollback per liter on the price of diesel fuel, Ortega
dismissed it as “pampalubag loob, tungod kahibalo ang estado kag mga kartel
nga gaibwal subong ang mga drivers kag operators.”
He
decried the continuing implementation of onerous taxes on the transport sector,
including the new Common Carrier Tax jointly imposed by the Department of
Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)
under the Comprehensive Reform Law. Under the new tax imposition, transport
operators will pay BIR for their monthly gross percentage tax and P500 annual
registration fee.
BIR
, DOTC, and other government agencies, Ortega said, know very well that most
public transport operators are marginal income earners and cannot cope with the
new impositions.
Suspend
oil deregulation law
The
striking drivers and operators are demanding a P1.50 fare hike, a moratorium on
oil prices increases, and the suspension of the oil deregulation law. They also
want the scrapping of all onerous impositions, like the drug test, seatbelt,
smoke-belching, and the new Common Carrier Tax.
Meanwhile,
the federation of tricycle drivers and operators FEBACTODA, slammed the
government and the BIR for the reports that they will be included in the
coverage of the Common Carrier Tax. Bulatlat.com
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