Of Unheeded Demands : QC IMC

The nationwide transport strike which transport groups are set to stage this coming Tuesday is something the government is bringing upon itself; it is not going to be the product of the transport sector’s “caprices” as government spokespersons are likely to claim.

It is going to be a follow-up to the jeepney drivers’ strike last March 1, which according to various media reports was able to paralyze some 90 percent of transportation in the routes it affected.

When transport groups go on strike, they are often told to resort to "legal" venues in airing their concerns.

But before March 1, 2004 there was October 2002, when transport groups filed a petition for fare increase before the Land Transportation and Franchise Regulatory Board (LTFRB) following a series of oil price hikes which had eaten into their daily income. The LTFRB,however, simply sat on it for more than a year, and last February the transport groups finally received a response: they were told that there was no basis to grant their petition, even as based on its own guidelines the LTFRB can grant a fare hike petition when oil prices have increased.

The last time transport groups were authorized to increase fare was in 2000. Since then, diesel prices have increased by almost P5, but transport groups have yet to be allowed to implement another fare hike.

Oil prices have increased by more than 60 times since the downstream oil industry was deregulated during the Ramos administration, but the transport sector has been allowed to increase fare only once since then.

Basic data from jeepney drivers themselves show that with diesel currently priced at P18 a liter and they using up an average of 30 liters of diesel a day, they each spend some P540 a day on diesel alone. At the current minimum fare of P4 per passenger and an average of 300 passengers a day, a jeepney driver earns a gross of P1,200 a day.

But take away from that the P540 as diesel cost and P500 more as boundary fee, and the jeepney driver is left with P160 to take home. This is way below the P555 which, based on an October 2003 study by the socio-economic think tank Ibon Foundation, an average Filipino family needs to survive daily. Ibon based its study on data from the National Wages and Productivity Board.

The transport strike to be staged this Tuesday will be a follow-up on jeepney drivers’ long-standing demand for a fare hike, which they also pushed during their March 1 action. That strike compelled the LTFRB to hold a dialogue with transport groups.

That dialogue, however, proved to be merely a moro-moro, as after the participating transport groups had submitted their position paper on their demand, the LTFRB claimed to have lost it and was asking them for another copy. The next thing they knew was that they were being told that fare hikes would lead to workers’ clamors for wage increases, an argument which leading transport activist Medardo Roda has correctly described as a canard since the demand for a P125 across-the-board, nationwide wage increase has been standing since 1999 but remains unheeded.

These responses are but a slight variation of the LTFRB’s reaction to the October 2002 petition.

It is such manners of responding to very legitimate demands that pushes transport groups to go on strike. Historically, transport groups have not demanded fare increases on mere whim, which is why it would be the height of idiocy to claim that by going on strike they will once again be displaying their “capriciousness.”

This is a stark contrast to the way the giant oil companies have been behaving ever since the enactment of the Oil Deregulation Law, which promised lower oil prices from increased competition. Based on data from Ibon Foundation, oil companies have been jacking up the prices of their products even when there were obvious downtrends in the world oil market.

It is interesting that while government turns a blind eye to the patently capricious behavior of oil companies, it plays deaf to the legitimate demands of those affected by skyrocketing oil prices.

In spite of this, there are still some who find it hard to understand why transport groups will be going on strike instead of "talking” with the government. Doubtless, thus, there will be those who will berate transport groups on Tuesday for not engaging in a dialogue with the LTFRB instead.

Such people need at least a ten-year course in logic. QC Independent Media Center