DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 20. 2013) – Various groups led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan picketed Wednesday the office of the Department of Energy in Davao City to protest the Aquino government’s failure to address the incessant oil price hikes and rising prices of basic commodities, including water rate and tuition fees.
Sheena Duazo, spokesperson of Bayan in Southern Mindanao, called Aquino “the Pontious Pilate of the Filipino masses” for simply washing hands over his responsibility to stop the exploitation of the oil cartel – Shell, Petron and Chevron.
She said Aquino is to be blamed why Filipinos have to live in poverty.
“There is no denying that the Aquino government’s concern for the poor is a mere sham. From January until March this year, the price of gasoline rose five times, amounting to a total of P4.50. It rolled back five times as well, equivalent to only P2.25 and this means that for every liter of gasoline, the oil cartel earned P2.25 and the people gained nothing but more suffering,” Duazo said.
Bayan and other progressive groups have long been campaigning for the scrapping of the oil deregulation law as practical solution to the sequential oil price hikes. It also demanded for the removal of E-VAT in petroleum products.
“When the price of oil increases, everything else follows. Worse, the people are ill-equipped to cope because wages are not even enough to sustain a family’s needs for food,” Duazo said.
Recently, the Davao City Water District announced an upcoming water rate hike reportedly for maintenance operations. However, Bayan said it is just a scheme to show that the government can no longer make water accessible to all, thus, justifying DCWD’s sale to profit-driven capitalists.
Furthermore, at least 31 schools in Davao region are poised to increase tuition and other fees for the upcoming school year.
“In the midst of all these, the Aquino administration only shrugged shoulders. This shows Aquino’s subservience to oil oligarchs, foreign investors and capitalist-educators,” Duazo said.
She said the increases are just consequences of the neo-liberal economic framework being followed by Aquino.
“The economic framework that favors liberalization of the market, and privatization and deregulation of basic social services benefiting only the few elites while depriving the majority of the Filipinos of their socio-economic rights deserves resistance from the masses,” she said. “To rally is just one form. As poverty and oppression worsen, the people will be compelled to take higher forms of action.”
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