BAGONG Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) Panay stands in full solidarity with the people. At a time when workers, drivers, farmers, fisherfolk, and ordinary consumers have been crushed by relentless price increases for more than three weeks, the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. regime shamelessly insists that “everything is normal” and that “there is no crisis.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
There is a crisis—and it is a crisis created and sustained by the government’s own anti-people policies. The situation has been further aggravated by US aggression against Iran, which has heightened global oil instability and placed Filipino workers, especially OFWs in the Middle East, in danger and uncertainty.
Reports of rising oil prices continue to batter the public, while Filipino migrant workers fear displacement and threats to their safety as tensions escalate abroad. Yet instead of decisively protecting the people, the government resorts to empty reassurances and reactive measures.
In response, Marcos Jr. signed Executive Order No. 110 on March 24, placing the entire country under a “national energy emergency” for one year. The regime’s declaration of a “national energy emergency” only exposes its failure to confront the roots of the problem. Instead of dismantling decades of oil deregulation and corporate control, the government is scrambling to manage a crisis it refuses to solve. This so-called emergency is not for the people, it is for the protection of big oil and profit.
While authorities claim supply is stable and will last until the end of April, fuel prices have skyrocketed without restraint. This is nothing less than brazen profiteering—reaching more than 120% in overpricing, at the direct expense of the Filipino people. Oil companies continue to rake in superprofits while the public is left to shoulder the unbearable cost of transport, food, and basic goods.
The Marcos regime’s response is clear: pass the burden to the people, shield corporate interests, and silence dissent under the guise of emergency powers.
In response, we, the people, will exercise our legitimate rights. The people’s strike is a just and necessary action against a regime that refuses to listen.
BAYAN-Panay raises the following urgent demands:
* Control fuel prices and stop overpricing—roll back prices to Php55 per liter, reflecting existing supply stocks prior to the crisis;
* Remove all taxes on oil products, including excise tax and VAT, which currently add around P18–P21 per liter and worsen the people’s burden;
* Provide immediate, sufficient, and inclusive financial assistance to all affected sectors;
* Junk the Oil Deregulation Law (ODL) that enables unbridled price manipulation and corporate profiteering, and reassert public control over energy industry;
* Establish a national oil industry to ensure genuine energy security and break dependence on foreign and private control;
* Condemn the US war of aggression that fuels global instability and drives oil price shocks that devastate countries like the Philippines.
The crisis we face is not inevitable, it is political. And it demands a political response.
We stand with the broad masses in collective action. We call on all sectors in Panay to join the people’s strike and assert our rights, our welfare, and our future.
There is a crisis. And the people will not be silent. — BAGONG ALYANSANG MAKABAYAN – PANAY <bayanpanay2014@gmail.com>
