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MILITANT
groups are gearing up for nationwide protest actions
against the recent surge in oil prices.
Members of the leftist labor federation
Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) will lead the nationally
coordinated protest actions.
KMU chairman Elemer Labog said hundreds
of workers will join the street protests that will be
supported by transport groups, which will also launch a
strike.
Labog said the protest action is a stern
warning to the government that “widespread unrest” will
still rock the remaining two years of the
administration.
“While others say that for the spirit of
the Yuletide season we should avert the protest actions
and the nationwide transport strike scheduled this
December 13, we firmly believe that the Arroyo
government is the real ‘Scrooge’ which is spoiling the
Christmas celebration of many Filipino families by
shamelessly conspiring with the oil mafia and giving us
a weekly oil-price hike.
“We have no choise but to fight back,
for we are not just being rob of a merry Christmas but
also of a coming new year full of hope and promises. The
gluttony of the Arroyo government and the oil cartel
deserves our utmost condemnation,” Labog said.
He also urged the public to support the
nationwide protests and strike since a “one-day”
collective sacrifice” will be a strong statement against
the Arroyo government and the oil cartel.
Labog also stressed that the majority of
the Filipinos will benefit from the legitimate demands
of the workers, drivers and other sectors during the
demonstrations.
“The collective howl of protests
reverberating nationwide on Thursday will provide a
message to the Arroyo government that the Filipino
people is serious in its demand for the oil-
deregulation law be repealed, that the P3 expanded
value-added tax in diesel be scrapped, and for oil-price
increases be stopped immediately,” Labog stressed.
Meanwhile, the Pambansang Lakas ng
Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) scored
Malacañang’s rice subsidy offer to jeepney drivers,
saying it is a “crazy, shameful and incorrigible”
proposal.
The group said it is obvious that the
plan to give out rice subsidy to jeepney drivers who
threatened to stage a nationwide strike this week was
meant to appease the wrath of the transport sector.
“President Arroyo, in a vain attempt to
save her government and her oil-cartel client from
wholesale public wrath and national outrage is endorsing
a proposal which is crazy, highly deplorable and totally
revolting,” Pamalakaya national chairman Fernando Hicap
said in a press statement.
Malacañang on Sunday said President
Arroyo has ordered various department heads to come out
with programs that would benefit the transport sector to
cushion the impact of oil-price increases and discourage
them from joining an alleged plan of a militant
transport group to go on strike within this week.
For its part, Pamalakaya has given
President Arroyo one month to give in to its five-point
demand—immediate halt in oil-price increases; rollback
of prices of all petroleum products by an average of P3
to P4 per liter; the repeal of oil-deregulation law; the
nationalization of oil industry; and the prosecution and
punishment of Petron, Shell and Caltex “for their
economic crimes against the people.”
Hicap said Pamalakaya will call on all
its 43 provincial chapters and six regional chapters all
over the country to stage a nationally coordinated
fishing strike in January.
“If fishing strikes across the country
are necessary to compel the Arroyo government and the
oil mafia composed of Petron, Shell and Caltex to stop,
rollback and put an end to corporate practices of price
manipulation and overpricing, then we will call our
colleagues to go on a nationwide fish holiday,” the
group said. |
