MANILA – Labor group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino said it is planning to solicit the support of lawmakers in the wake of the metro rail fare hike.
The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) implemented an P11 + P 1.00 per kilometer for the Light Rail Transit 1 and 2 and the Metro Rail Transit Line 3.
“If the Palace sought a written statement of its allies in the House of Representatives to support the move of the Executive then, we the most conscientious taxpayers and true economic engineers ought to demand that our own representatives do the same,” said Gie Relova, BMP Secretary-General in Metro Manila.
Among the congressmen who signed the joint statement that was reported in major dailies during the Christmas break of the Lower House were Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (Cagayan de Oro City), Rep. Oscar Rodriguez (Pampanga), Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas (Ilocos Norte), Eric Singson (Ilocos Sur), Rep. Cesar Sarmiento (Catanduanes), Rep. Joaquin Chipeco Jr. (Laguna) and Rep. Ben P. Evardone (Eastern Samar).
Relova explained that the congressmen based in the Metro Manila “must politically side and publicly speak for the welfare and interest of its constituents for it is the very essence of representative democracy. They are politically and morally obliged to resonate the sentiments of those who elected them into office. That is what our back-breaking toil and taxes are for in the first place”.
Relova expressed dismay over the fare hike and despite the uproar and its unpopularity, not a single congressman out of the 32 Metro Manila-based lawmakers expressed opposition to the fare increase.
She said 19 of the 32 congressmen belong to the ruling Liberal Party of which President Aquino is the chairman and transport Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya is its acting President. Among them include staunch allies of the Palace, such as Rep. Edgar Erice (Caloocan City), Miro Quimbo (Marikina City) and Speaker Sonny Belmonte (Quezon City).
Four solons belong to the United Nationalist Alliance; three are members of the Nationalist Peoples’ Coalition and one each from Kabaka, Lakas, National Unity Party and Partido Magdiwang.
“It is extremely lamentable that these congressmen have failed to mirror the perspective of the underprivileged majority of their constituents when in fact Aquino has himself admitted last Friday that the fare hike is unpopular. Their detachment from the conditions, aspirations and concerns of their electorate is the reason why the Batasan Pambansa as an institution perennially suffers from dismal popularity ratings,” Relova said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
The BMP called the fare hike “an unjust imposition” that will have a rippling effect on the spending capacity of millions of ordinary employees, factory workers and their children who use the rail transport system daily to work and school.
“Our already constrained family budget could no longer adjust to and accommodate the burden the Palace wants us to bear. If the government is hell-bent on this, then they might as well consider eradicating the withholding tax deducted from us every pay day, the value added tax in every item we purchase or for once, in his term raise wages to a level that may be considered live-able for our families and not the pittance he has been giving since he occupied the Malacanang,” Relova said.
Commuter groups are alsopushing for the scrapping of the fare hike in as much as the re-allocation of funds away from the mass transport system will only benefit the capitalists behind the onerous contracts with the DOTC instead of subsidizing the poor.
They are also pressing for the reversal of all privatization schemes of the government which according to them is tantamount to abandoning its constitutional mandate “to free the people from poverty through policies that provide adequate social services, promote full employment, a rising standard of living, and an improved quality of life for all.”
The BMP, together with other labor organizations under Nagkaisa held protest actions at several LRT and MRT stations on the first day of the hike’s implementation. The militants vowed that the second wave of protests will be at the “very doorsteps of all incompetent and anti-poor state officials.” (Mindanao Examiner)
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