Filipino students strike.
The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan in Southern Mindanao Region and the public transport drivers’ group called Transmission-Piston said they will pursue the transport strike on September 19.
“The mounting discontent of the people over oil overpricing calls for the broader unity of all concerned sectors to stand up against the exploitation and monopoly of the oil cartel which is in cahoots with the Aquino government in robbing the Filipino people of their hard earned money,” Franchie Buhayan, a spokesperson of the Bayan-SMR, said.
Buhayan said their group was outraged by the incessant spikes in the price of oil and petroleum products. “The alliance drumbeats the transport strike as another staging of the peoples’ protest against oil overpricing and the oil deregulation law in general, and other economic issues such as the Expanded Value-Added Tax,” Buhayan said.
According to Transmission-Piston, the Department of Energy has data that local oil prices have been overpriced by at least P9.00 per liter, accumulated since January 2008.
“Whenever oil prices shoot up in the world market, the Big 3 also increases local prices by folds higher than what the world market dictates. Whenever there is a price rollback, the Big 3 almost doesn’t want to give a roll back and reduces prices by amounts much lower than what the market dictates,” said Edil Gonzaga, leader of the Transmission–Piston.
Gonzaga was referring to Chevron, Shell and Petron.
The group is demanding a P9.00 rollback to provide immediate relief to the overburdened drivers and commuters.
“The P-Noy Pantawid Pasada Cards is a big sham, giving dole-outs instead of nipping the bud of our problem with the deregulated oil economy. President Aquino must give way for the scrapping of the Oil Deregulation Law and push for the nationalization of the oil industry,” Gonzaga said.
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