The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) condemns the arrest of six leaders of jeepney drivers’ organizations and the repression of jeepney drivers at a September 18 protest against jeepney privatization in time for a transport summit in Bacolod City in the island of Negros.

The arrest of the transport leaders, the use of water cannons against the protesting jeepney drivers, and the threats of towing the protestors’ jeepneys are additional injustices to the jeepney phaseout through the government’s Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP).

The PUVMP as it currently stands will take away the livelihood of tens of thousands of jeepney drivers and leave them jobless. A so-called transport summit was being held in Bacolod and jeepney drivers have every reason to demand that their plight be included in the summit’s agenda.

The jeepney drivers and their families have every right to hold a protest at the Bacolod transport summit. Their protest was legitimate and guaranteed by no less than the country’s Constitution and laws. Who gave the government authorities of Bacolod the right to suppress the jeepney drivers’ protest?

CTUHR is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the following transport leaders and protestors:
Rudy Catedral, President, Bacolod Manibela (Samahang Manibela Mananakay at Nagkaisang Terminal ng Transportasyon)
Lillian Sembrano, President, KNETCO Piston (Kabacod Negros Transport)
Melchor Omagayon, Manibela
Rodolfo Gardose, President of Undoc Piston (United Negros Driver and Operators Center)
Eric Bendoy, Secretary General, Undoc Piston
Shalemar Saliot, KNETCO

We are calling on the local governments of Bacolod and Negros Occidental to investigate the repression of the jeepney drivers’ protest, to sanction the highest police officials who are responsible for the repression, and to educate their police forces about the right to freedom of expression and assembly and other human rights.

The Commission on Human Rights and the national government under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr should also look into this incident. Filipinos should not be denied of their livelihood and jobs in the name of modernization, and should not be subjected to so much repression and rights violations.