Around 50 people held a noise barrage at the fountain of justice in Bacolod City yesterday to demand again for a wage hike amid rising prices of basic commodities like rice and oil.

Beating aluminum cooking utensils and blowing plastic whistles, members of Kilusang Mayo Uno, Anak Bayan, Kadamay, Urban Poor, and Gabriela, called for a P125 across-the-board pay increase and decried the continuing climb of rice and oil prices.

Some of the protestors also asked for coins from passing vehicles and encouraged them to blow their horns in protest with them.

The picketers hit the handling of the price crises by the government and blamed it for what they call failed economic policies of international organizations such as the World Trade Organization-General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to which the Philippines is a signatory.

KMU spokesperson Ian Evidente said the fact that we are importing rice is proof that we lack domestic production.

The National Food Authority, particularly in Negros, has repeatedly assured that there is enough supply of the staple in the province with another shipload of rice coming in.

Oil companies in the country, on the other hand, have justified the increase in prices of their products as effects of the rising price of the commodity in the world market.*PP

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