Impact of fare, price increases to the Filipinos: an insightful article from investigative on-line magazine Bulatlat.com

Dire times ahead: poor braces for impact of fare, price increases
By Anne Marxze Umil, Bulatlat.com

MANILA — The year 2011 started not with a bang but a lot of whimper – whimper, that is, from many Filipinos who complain about tough times ahead.

Much of the discontent so far is focused on the increasing cost of transportation. There’s the 300-percent increase in the toll fees for the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) ^[2]; because many of the capital’s produce are sourced from the south, this inevitably raised as well the prices of certain goods, such as vegetables.

There’s the increase as well of the flag-down rates of taxis ^[3] and the hike in the prices of basic commodities such as sugar and flour.

Then there’s the increase in MRT and LRT fares ^[4], which is eyed for implementation by March 1.

An analysis ^[5] by the online newsmagazine Newsbreak shows that the MRT-lRT fare hikes will affect the poor most. It explains that the price of single-journey tickets will increase by 100% while the price of stored-value tickets increased by only 50%. Most rail commuters opt to buy single-journey tickets because, as Newsbreak points out, a stored-value ticket, which can be bought for P100, is out of their budget. But the publication finds that a single-journey ticket costs more per trip than a stored-value ticket.

The only thing that doesn’t increase, many minimum wage earners complain, is their salary, which in Metro Manila is pegged at P404 (less than $10) that barely covers the most basic necessities of a small family.

Shirley Pascua, 35, a housewife, thinks that the poor are getting poorer under the administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III. “He is proving to be a disappointment. The price of everything is going up,” she told Bulatlat.com.

Pascua’s husband is a taxi driver. She said what he makes is barely enough to make ends meet. They have two children; Adrian, 13, and Marielle, 12. “It’s a good thing my eldest is in a good school. If not for his scholarship, we will not be able to send him to a school like that,” Pascua said. Her youngest will also apply for the scholarship in the same high school.

Read the whole story here.