Friday, July 18, 2008 Students protest oil deregulation law
OVER 1,000 students marched through Baguio's streets, while airing grievances under the Arroyo administration and promising this will mark the beginning of massive youth protests until President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's State of the Nation Address (Sona).
Dressed in red, the students pushed to Malcolm Square despite the rain and attempts of police to stop and block them at least thrice at Session Road and Magsaysay Avenue.
The youth protest was held as part of a national day of action calling on the Filipino people to fight poverty and corruption by removing President Arroyo from office.
"Today, the youth will walk the talk. The crisis is unbearable. We cannot afford to be confined within the halls of the academe when our future is at stake," said Cori Alessa Co of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP).
Co explained that the participation of a thousand students is a strong statement of their resurging passion to serve the people. "In this terrible situation, we choose to take this outside, into the streets," she said.
Members of the militant group Akbayan who also took part in the march said they are protesting the weekly increases in the prices of oil products.
"We need structural reforms now, not cover-up solutions like subsidies for individual families," said Akbayan spokesperson Sloan Ramos.
"What we call for is the scrapping of the oil deregulation law so government can control oil prices in the country. Subsidies are worthless if the prices of basic goods like rice are too high anyway for the public to afford," Ramos added.
Meanwhile, College Editors Guild of the Philippines chairman Anjo Cerdeña said students and their parents are burdened further with yearly tuition increases atop the rising prices of basic needs.
"With the prices of basic commodities at an all-time high, our parents' savings would not be enough to cover our schooling," he said.
Cerdeña said if the Arroyo administration is sincere in giving priority to education, it would "not just speak but act for a tuition moratorium at all levels, in both public and private schools."
He said the President must resolve the economic crisis "before students drop out because they have no money left for school projects and other needs."
John Silverio Saligbon, student council chairman of University of the Philippines-Baguio, promised to intensify the protests in the coming weeks.
He claimed there is no way out of poverty under a president whose main agenda is political survival. "There is no stopping the people, toughened by the youth, in removing a morally bankrupt government and replacing it with a pro-people program of, for and by the people," he said. (ENO)
