Transport strikes may have been effective in years past, but the strategy has already lost its luster, its effectiveness dulled by more modern approaches to gaining public support and winning concessions.
Launched in protest over a fare increase that was suspended by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. despite its having been originally approved last March by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), the strike may have had valid grounds. But let’s remember that the suspension was aimed at a higher cause: to prevent runaway inflation.
In fairness, the government’s approach to the oil crunch brought about by the US-Israel attacks against Iran did temper inflation. Coupled with the financial and material assistance extended by national agencies and local government units to vulnerable sectors, the methods appear to have achieved some success.
Inflation still affected us, but not as bad as it would have been if left unattended to.
Higher public transport costs often trigger petitions from workers’ groups for wage increases. Approved wage hikes compel businesses to raise the prices of goods and services so they can maintain profit margins. Bank interest rates subsequently increase as well, as a means of curbing further inflation.
The fare hikes last week is a case in point. LTFRB increased traditional jeepney fares to P14 and ordinary city buses to P15. Coupled with the Middle East oil crunch and the Philippine’s agricultural damage due to typhoons, the fare hikes have prodded the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to adjust its September 2026 inflation projections upwards between 6.4 and 7.4 percent, from last month’s 6.1 percent.
The public may still be impervious to it now, but the fare hikes will affect everyone in the long run. This is not to say that the fare hikes are totally unjustified, as we have seen how drivers and operators have endured the hardships brought about by the global oil crisis. I interact with many of these drivers and operators regularly and I deeply understand their plight.
But there are legal avenues for the drivers’ cause. LTFRB, for one, is mandated to accept and entertain appeals that drivers can resort to if they are unsatisfied with the approved fare hikes. The Department of Transportation (DOTr) is also available as a higher avenue that can reconsider LTFRB’s decisions. Finally, drivers can resort to the courts of law to challenge rulings by LTFRB and the DOTr.
Outside of legal procedures, the strikers ought to resort to more effective forms of protest nowadays. Online petitions, for instance, have proven to be more successful than physical protests for many causes.
In 2012, netizens launched online petitions against harsh provisions of the Cybercrime Prevention Act. The Supreme Court subsequently struck down provisions that penalized internet users for simply liking or sharing defamatory posts.
In 2017, environmentalists launched a digital petition against plans to build an underwater Nickelodeon-branded theme park in Palawan, gathering over 250,000 signatures within days. Bowing to public pressure, the project was thus stopped.
In 2021, I personally led a petition on Change.Org to preserve the Lapulapu Statue at the Liberty Shrine in Mactan which was to be replaced with a new one by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP). The petition generated almost 20,000 signatures globally, prompting NHCP to keep its hands off the statue and to request me to already stop the petition that had filled its website to the brim.
Jeepney strikes belong to a bygone era. Protesters should improve their methods of struggle to gain public sympathy and effect change.
