Transport groups in Negros Occidental are eyeing May 12 for a provincewide transportation strike against the continued rise in fuel prices, Jesse Ortega, secretary general of the United Negros Drivers and Operators Center, said yesterday.

Officials of UNDOC and the Federation of Bacolod City Drivers Associations will meet today to decide on the date and to determine how long their protests should be, he said.

UNDOC, in a statement furnished the DAILY STAR by Ortega yesterday, said oil companies have inconsiderably raised the prices of petroleum products to a new record high of P42.76 for diesoline and P52.50 for gasoline. These increases in pump prices have posted an average of P47.62 per liter, the statement said.

The reason being given for such increases are recovery of losses due to constant upward price adjustments of petroleum products in the world market, to justify price manipulation  by trans-national companies at the expense of the Filipino people,  Ortega said.

The UNDOC statement also said that members of the Philippine Congress in the early 90s who passed bills  and then President Fidel Ramos who signed them into law  should be blamed for this continuing economic strangulation on the Philippine economy.

UNDOC also blames Republic Act 7638 on the Privatization of Government Owned and Controlled Corporations passed in 1993 that saw the Philippines’ shares in Petron being sold to Aramco,  RA 8180 – first version of the Oil Deregulation Law in 1996, RA 8479 second version of the Oil Deregulation Law giving TNC’s full control of the Philippine oil industry in 1998 and RA 8241 – Expanded Value Added Tax in 1996 for the current economic owes of the Filipino people.

In their protest, Ortega said UNDOC will call for the scrapping of the Oil Deregulation Law, and  the Reformed Value Added Tax, and for the nationalization of the oil industry, setting up of a strong food security measure program and an end to corruption in government and is urging the public to participate.*CPG

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