THE largest labor group in the country is fully supporting Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez on his call to oil companies to also share in the burden and share in the sacrifice amid soaring prices of fuel products.

In a statement, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said it is not only our PUV drivers and motorists who are taking the hit from these series of price hikes, but all Filipino families.

Earlier, Romualdez and other members of the House of Representatives held meeting with the industry players to discuss on how to lower the cost of fuel in the country and how to mitigate the effects of the weekly price hikes to the daily living of the Filipinos.

Romualdez asked those in the oil industry to cut down their profit at least, as one way to reduce the prices.

According to the TUCP, the increase in the fuel cost would translate to higher prices of food and other basic commodities.

“Unless we stop these price hikes, it will continue to have a crushing impact on already-eroded wages of workers due to surging food and electricity inflation, among many other global and domestic headwinds. Why is it so easy for gas companies to implement price hikes while it is exceedingly hard for workers to demand pay hikes?” the TUCP said in a statement.

The TUCP also urged all social partners, both in government and in business, to indeed share in the sacrifice because workers have long sacrificed, especially during the pandemic, in struggling to provide a decent life to their families despite too high prices and too low wages.

“We laud the Speaker for his crisis leadership and for being at the forefront in our clarion call for capitalists to moderate their greed so that the lives of working families can be more bearable,” the group said.

Likewise, the TUCP welcomed Romualdez’s statement that the Congress is open to recommending to President Ferdinand ‘ Bongbong’ Marcos the potential suspension of excise tax and value-added tax (VAT) on oil.

“We join calls to review and reform the Oil Deregulation Law. This is long-overdue since this policy of unbundling gas prices never ended unfair and unjust pricing borne out of price collusion. It is well-settled, after all,that liberalization and deregulation will only work in a truly free market, and not in an oligopoly filled with colluding firms,” the grou added.

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Jester P. Manalastas