Militants vow more protests against fuel price increases
By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:23:00 06/22/2008
MANILA, Philippines--A militant group vowed Saturday to continue holding "angry protests" to show the public's "intensifying" outrage over the government's inaction on the weekly oil price increases.
"The Arroyo government and the oil companies must expect more of these protests in the coming days and weeks. We assure them that each oil price hike will be met with growing and intensifying protests," said the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, through its public information officer Arnold Padilla.
On Friday, activists from Bayan's member-organizations paralyzed traffic for several minutes after they lay down on the busy intersection of E. Rodriguez and Araneta avenues in Quezon City to protest another round of P1.50 liter increase in petroleum prices.
The protesters also held a noise barrage and blocked and spray-painted passing oil tankers.
Also Friday, members of the militant youth group League of Filipino Students (LFS) picketed the main office of major oil player Petron Corp. in Makati City and pelted the building with tomatoes.
Padilla told reporters that with this weekend's price hike, the pump price of diesel has now jumped since the start of the year by more than 32 percent, kerosene, by 34 percent, and unleaded gasoline by 30 percent.
He estimated that the government's collections from the 12-percent value-added tax (VAT) on diesel had increased from P4.61 per liter in January to P6.11 in June; on kerosene from P4.80 to P6.42, and on unleaded gasoline from P5.33 to P6.96.
Bayan said it was unfair that the government kept earning billions of pesos from the VAT on oil while ordinary Filipinos had to bear the brunt of not just the rising cost of fuel, but also the resulting increase in the prices of goods and services.
"Such huge increases in oil prices in just less than six months, and the billions of pesos in windfall that the government rakes in from the oil VAT due to these increases at the people's expense are intolerable. At a time of increasing rice and food prices, worsening joblessness and poverty, public outrage against oil price hikes, the VAT and government's lack of a meaningful response is just unreasonable," Padilla said.
Bayan reiterated its demand for the removal of the VAT on oil to immediately bring down pump prices by P6 to 7 a liter and provide much needed relief to the people. It also called for the repeal of Republic Act No. 8479 or the Oil Deregulation Law to control local oil price movements.
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