A PEOPLE’S organization said the continuous increase of fuel prices will cripple the productivity of farmers and fishermen in the country.
A rural-based group, Anakpawis said Monday, March 28, that farmers and fishermen are again bracing for another impact on their livelihood following another increase oil price hike Tuesday, March 29.
“Farmers and fishers are bracing for another impact of oil price hike. The price rollback last week was just a mock consolation that didn’t bring any relief or recovery to the livelihood of devastated sectors,” Anakpawis president Ariel Casilao said.
He said rural sectors have yet to get back to their feet following the constant skyrocketing fuel prices and previous natural calamities that struck the country.
“Yet local oil firms are on a roll in exploiting the poor Filipinos courtesy of their monopolistic practices on oil manipulation and overpricing sans government intervention,” Casilao said.
For its part, militant fishers’ group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) warned that unstoppable oil price hikes means that many fishermen suspend operations due to rising cost of production.
Pamalakaya said this would affect the domestic supply and prices that is detrimental to local fishing industry and Filipino consumers.
“The government is accountable to the rural sectors who are unable to conduct farming and fishing activities as well as to the consumers who bear the brunt of inflation of prime commodities. Failure to heed our demand to suspend oil taxes and reverse the deregulation of downstream oil industry is tantamount to criminal neglect and state abandonment of its responsibility to the people,” Casilao said.
Anakpawis, along with progressive groups of farmers and fishers, has been calling for measures to reverse the deregulation of oil industry.
The group specifically mentioned the repeal of Oil Deregulation Law, which it said is “empowering oil firms to overprice and manipulate the domestic oil prices.”