Thursday, July 10, 2008 Wenceslao: Fare hike, other woes By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
I AM fully dependent on public transport, so the recent round of fare increases bites off a bigger slice of the family’s daily budget. When the minimum fare for passenger jeepneys was P6, I spent P38 going to the office in the afternoon and back to the house at night. That did not include trips to school to fetch the kid and other travels.
With the recent P1 provisional increase in the minimum fare, the spending went up to P42, again excluding trips to school to fetch the kid and other travels. Taxi fare was in the vicinity of P130, that is, if the click in the cab’s meter is not as fast as the heartbeat of one who has just seen his electricity bill. But more fare hikes are being announced.
These are, indeed, bad times. A story in the television newscast had an expert saying that the recent panic over the supply of grain seems to be over and that the price of commercial rice is going down. If only I can buy rice in a TV station. Yesterday, the line of people in the retailer of National Food Authority rice near our place was still long.
Back to the electricity billing. My wife late last month turned one over to me after it was delivered by a Visayas Electric Co. courier. “Arang-arang kay sa last month,” she told me, referring to our June consumption. My joy was short-lived when I saw the figure of around P1,200. Okay, in May it was around P1,300. But it was P900 two years ago.
By the way , every time my wife switches on the stove, I immediately try to recall the date of our most recent purchase of a tank of liquefied petroleum gas. Months ago the price was more than P500 per tank, then it breached the P600 per tank mark and has never gone down. I am actually mulling alternatives already: kerosene, wood or charcoal?
Unfortunately, there are many other things we couldn’t let go. My youngest has still to be freed of diapers and the price of milk has gone up. So too prices of canned goods, eggs, cooking oil, other essentials. Add to that my vitamins and maintenance medicines. For some of my clothes, I have shifted from department stores to ukay-ukay.
So what am I saying? That I and thousands, even millions of other wage earners are feeling the pinch and finding it difficult to balance monthly pay with spending. It’s like a cord is being twisted around our necks and tightened every year, making it increasingly difficult for us to breath. Translation: we are being killed softly. Pastilan.
(khanwens@yahoo.com/ my blog: cebuano.wordpress.com)
