MANILA, 26 November 2004 — A strike called by jeepney operators and drivers to protest rising oil prices stranded tens of thousands of commuters in the national capital and other cities.
Petron, Shell and Caltex — the three major oil companies in the country — promised to give a 2-percent discount on diesel but this was too late to avert the strike, which snarled traffic and left some school classes suspended in many places.
“Such a discount would mean nothing with the weekly increases in the prices of petroleum products. This is just a deception,” said Mar Garvida, president of the transport group Piston.
Garvida said the strikers were demanding stronger government control over oil prices, a 60 percent rollback in diesel prices and a repeal of the oil deregulation law that gives oil companies freedom to set fuel prices. The strikers also were protesting heavy fines imposed by traffic officers.
“We want pump prices rolled back because local prices have been going up even as prices of oil in the world market are going down,” Garvida said.
Strikers claimed to have paralyzed up to 95 percent of their routes in metropolitan Manila and nearby suburbs but authorities said some of those who joined the strike early in the day were seen operating again by the afternoon.
In Manila, the government deployed trucks and vans to pick up thousands of stranded passengers. Droves of workers heading to Manila’s Makati financial district were seen walking and trying to hitch rides from private vehicles.
Radio reported that police cleared some roads of metal spikes, while outside the capital some provinces were also reporting major disruptions.
Nearly all of Piston’s 450,000 members took part in the one-day strike, Garvida said. At least three other major transport unions joined them.
The strikers received backing from the New Nationalist Alliance (Bayan), a fringe left-wing political party and from the NPA, the armed wing of the underground Communist Party of the Philippines which has been waging more than three decades of Maoist rebellion. “We express our solidarity with the workers. We are warning the police and military not to intervene,” NPA spokesman Gregorio Rosal said.
Police deployed about 3,000 officers around Manila to prevent violence.
A spokesman for President Gloria Arroyo said the demands should be addressed “with urgency, fairness and consistency” and the government would continue to hold talks with the disgruntled workers.
“Dialogues with the sector are continuing and means of relief are being discussed with the oil companies,” presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said. (Additional input from Agencies)
